“No amount of colorful rooms with lots of great toys, regular meals, and health and education services takes away the psychological impact of losing your parents,” said Zayas, the dean of UT Austin’s School of Social Work. “The damage that will be done will last a lifetime.”

After visiting a shelter in Texas, the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Dr. Colleen Kraft, in a television interview, likened what she saw to abuse.

“It is a form of child abuse,” Kraft told CBS News. “This type of trauma can be long-lasting, and it’s difficult to recover from this. We know very young children go on to not develop their speech, not develop their language, not develop their gross and fine motor skills and wind up with developmental delays.”