TUCSON, AZ (AP) -
Child Protective Services is facing a renewed challenge in finding places for children to sleep.
A Pima County office morphed into a children's shelter over the weekend because foster and group homes elsewhere in the county were full, the Arizona Daily Star reported. The agency also has placed children outside of the county.
CPS official Flora Sotomayor in Pima County said the situation isn't unusual. She attributes it to an increase in removal and dependency petitions - a formal step to placing children in state custody.
CPS workers have filed nearly 700 dependency petitions in Pima County juvenile court through June this year. About 500 had filed over the same six months in each of the previous five years.
Sotomayor says more children also have been removed from their homes.
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