How does it feel to grow up in a world where nobody loves you? That's what the children of the Maclaren Children's Center in El Monte California deal with every day. Opened in 1961 as an Emergency Foster Shelter, Maclaren quickly deteriorated into a last minute holding facility for implacable foster children age infant to eighteen. Most were Severely Emotionally Disturbed, many were delinquents, and all were neglected. Known throughout the state as the 'Alcatraz' of foster care, it was more violent than most state prisons with an average of six assaults every day. Even though children were supposed to stay for only forty eight hours at a time, almost all children ended up making Maclaren their permanent home. And so there they sat, behind Maclaren's 15-foot perimeter wall, waiting to be adopted but knowing no one would. After all, they were the unwanted. Dumping Ground examines the position that most foster children are in: They are alone and expected to function in a world that doesn't want them. Based on true events and circumstances, it follows the story of Katie A, the lead plaintiff in the 2003 class action lawsuit that resulted in Maclaren's Closing. Abandoned at age four, Katie has spent the past decade in and out of foster homes and psychiatric facilities, including seven stays at the Maclaren Children's Center. Her story of survival illustrates the type of tenacity and resistance that some people have to exert on a daily basis merely to stay alive.