PONTIAC, Mich. – The Oakland County Sheriff’s Office shared more details about the terrible conditions three children were living in for years.
Deputies performed a welfare check at the home because the landlord hadn’t heard from the renter in months and found the kids living in “absolute squalor.”
The children’s mom is being accused of child neglect.
The Oakland County Sheriff’s Office is collecting donations for three children who were left to live alone for years at a rental house in Pontiac after being abandoned by their mother.
The three kids, a 15-year-old boy, a 13-year-old girl, and a 12-year-old girl survived off of weekly drop-offs of prepared meals and hadn’t been to school since being abandoned.
Oakland County deputies performed a welfare check at the house after the landlord hadn’t heard from the mother in months, and when they arrived, they found garbage piled as high as four feet and mold and human waste throughout the home.
The boy told authorities that he and his two sisters had been living alone at the house since being abandoned by their mother in 2020 or 2021.
Their mother was arrested and Child Protective Services placed the children in custody of a relative. Charges from the Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office are expected in the next few days.
Residents in the Pontiac neighborhood, like Michelle Ratcliff, are still torn about the three children who had been staying inside the home in horrible conditions for years.
“You just can’t do kids like that,” said Ratcliff. “They can’t fend for themselves.” She knows the kids' grandfather and said it’s sad that nobody checked on them.
The Oakland County Sheriff’s Office was collecting clothing for the children but released an update on Tuesday, Feb. 18, and said they had received plenty of clothing items and are now accepting donations to allocate to the kids' future needs.
“We appreciate the community’s response in supporting the three neglected Pontiac children,” the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office said. “At this juncture, we have sufficient clothing donations and are shifting our focus to accept donations for educational supplies and to allocate resources for their future well-being. We are accepting donations to a tax-deductible qualified fund, with 100% of the contributions going directly to the children."
One local organization that has also jumped in to help is the ENNIS Center for Children.
“ENNIS Center for Children is going to donate clothes, hats, shoes, anything else that we can provide to them to help,” said ENNIS Program Director Crystal Wilson. “We are just hoping that we can help our children in any way that we can, that we can provide services and just uplift our children and make sure our children are safe and have a safe space to go to.”
