Grandmother could lose granddaughter to foster care (Hawaii)

A grandmother who's committed to raising her grand-daughter stands to lose the child to a foster home.

That's troubling and even scary to the grandmother because a few days ago, her other grand-daughter died in foster care.

Police have opened a first-degree assault case in the death of the two-month-old girl, who lived in a foster home.

The dead baby's half-sister has always lived with her grandmother.

K-Lyn loves her pet mice. She explains they're a family and she shows us how the mother mouse watches out for her babies, pulling each one to shelter.

The little girl has been told the infant half-sister she never got to know went to heaven.

Baby Alana was taken from her drug-using mother at the hospital and placed in a foster care, where she suffered five suspicious bone fractures. The cause of her death at age two months has not been determined.

At age 4, K-Lyn is healthy and happy.

"I don't want her to be like Alana and be abused," says Ella Yamamoto, grandmother.

Grandmother Ella Yamamoto says Child Protective Services has given her a deadline to meet before it finds a foster home for K-Lyn.

The trigger was Alana testing positive at birth for crystal meth. CPS became concerned about other children in the mother's legal custody. While K-Lyn has lived with tutu since birth and state documents identify her as the custodial parent, K-Lyn's mother has legal custody.

Yamamoto says she's been told there's only one thing keeping her from becoming K-Lyn's foster or adoptive parent -- the van she lives in is not considered proper shelter for K-Lyn.

"We have a roof over our head, but it's a car for now. But I need to find a place for now 'cause CPS will take her from me in three weeks," says Yamamoto.

K-Lyn has many neatly kept possessions and a regular schedule. Tutu works in a restaurant; papa is Mister Mom until K-Lyn starts school and he can get a paying job.

Ella Yamamoto keeps the mood light with K-Lyn, but she's desperately looking for a very affordable home while making burial arrangements for the granddaughter who died in foster care.

CPS tells Yamamoto she must provide a two-bedroom home in order to qualify to keep K-Lyn.

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