With a new school year comes new supplies, clothes, shoes and many other costly items — especially for grandparents trying to raise grandchildren on a retirement salary.

Riverside resident Adrian Charniak has had custody of her grandson for almost five years and has started support groups for other grandparents in the area struggling to get custody and financial aid.

It’s a struggle with which Charniak is intimately familiar. To gain custody of her grandson, Joey, she has been to court 112 times and spent $65,000 in legal fees.

Financially, it is a great hardship on grandparents, many of who are in retirement, to have to support a child or children while wading through the court system.

Initially, Charniak expected gaining custody would be commonsense, even seamless.

“When our grandson was born, he was born with cocaine in his system,” she said. “(I thought) I’m the grandma, I’m in the hospital, they will give me the child.”

But Charniak was wrong. Instead, she was in for a fight. And she’s not alone.

Forcing reason into law

Nationwide, more than 4 million grandparents are responsible for more than 6 million children. In Illinois alone, there are about 214,000 children living in grandparent-headed households, according to the AARP Foundation’s 2007 fact sheet.

And laws are changing. Grandparents and other caregivers now are eligible to receive a one-time $100,000 payment in the event that a child’s parent is killed while serving with the country’s armed forces, as of July 1.

Locally, Charniak led the push for the Fostering Connections to Success Act passed by the U.S. House of Representatives June 24.

The act includes three core elements, according to Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill. It allows states to use federal funds to support family caregivers raising relatives who were in the foster care system. It also continues to cover children who currently are covered under the federal subsidized guardianship program. And it provides funding to establish kinship navigator programs, state initiatives that provide information, referral and follow up services to grandparents to link them to benefits and services that they or the children need, and it requires notification of relatives when a child enters the foster care system.

In North Riverside a “Thank You” event is being held for grandparents raising grandchildren Sunday, Sept. 7 in the lower level of the police department, 2400 S. Des Planes Ave. Charniak said this event is not attached to any committee but simply something she wanted to do for grandparents.

At the event there will be information available for grandparents on any topic with which they need help.

Straddling the gap

La Grange resident Pat Hoover has partial custody of her two grandchildren and had to move from Arkansas to get it.

She now lives off her retirement, month to month, supporting the family.

Hoover decided to move to La Grange after receiving constant calls that her son was in and out of Cook County Jail, leaving her concerned about her grandchildren’s welfare.

“My husband and I are co-parenting,” Hoover said. “It’s like a divorce situation; we have vacations, holidays, every other weekend and counseling.”

Hoover has been in and out of court attempting to get custody, and she believes she has been taken advantage of by the attorneys hired to defend her case.

“It was a major lifestyle change,” Hoover said. “I was working as an associate broker in Arkansas. My salary was $90,000 to $100,000 a year. I just got a bill from the attorney today, and we spent $30,000.”

Hoover is paying rent in La Grange and keeping up maintenance on her home in Arkansas.

“I liquidated my retirement assets, and that is what we have been living on,” she said.

Since the ruling on Aug. 18 that she has joint custody, Hoover has felt much more secure knowing that even though the children reside with their mother, Hoover still has the opportunity to make sure they are being raised properly.

“The courts are always going to favor the mother, in my opinion,” Hoover said. “They have to give parents an opportunity to shape up.”

Beatrice Cubie, a Berkely resident, said she took three grandchildren into her custody because she couldn’t stand the thought of them split up upon entering custody of the state because of their parents’ instability.

“I didn’t want them separated,” she said. “I am going to fight — fight until the day I die for these children.”

Cost of custody

The three grandmothers said the hardest part of raising their grandchildren is the financial and emotional toll it takes on them.

Cubie has spent all of her life savings to put a down payment on a home for her and her grandchildren. But the cost doesn’t end there — every day something new crops up.

“They need gym shoes, uniforms, clothes, school supplies,” she said. “They got school supplies, (but) not all of them. I couldn’t get everything.”

There should be more financial help for grandparents in her situation, Cubie said. There’s a dire need for protection against unfit parents for the children, and a system in place where attorneys can’t take advantage of grandparents trying to do the right thing.

Charniak said more and more grandparents are becoming aware they can fight for custody, and there is help available when trying to support their grandchildren. However, in her experience, more than half of grandparents still do not realize there are services available.

Cubie emphasized that even though she struggles daily, like many other grandparents probably do, she keeps pushing because she knows something good has to come out eventually.

“I am a fighter, I will sacrifice my life for these children,” she said. “They can’t help where they came from. Thank God, they had a grandmother.”