This article explores Haiti’s shift from institutional orphanages toward family- and community-based care, told through the story of Émile Bejin, who spent the first 14 years of his life in an orphanage outside Port-au-Prince before moving into a foster home in southern Haiti. The piece explains how the number of orphanages surged after the 2010 earthquake, many of which provided inadequate care and sometimes exposed children to abuse, while most children in these institutions actually had living parents. Organizations like Overture International are now working to reunite children with relatives or place them in foster families, despite extreme challenges such as poverty, gang violence, displacement, and weak government infrastructure. The article highlights both the potential benefits of family-based care and the risks, including fears of exploitation and the difficulty of tracking children’s families, illustrating the complex realities of child welfare reform in Haiti.