(April 22, 2008)—Waco’s Methodist Home has been ready since earlier this month to accommodate about two-dozen of the more than 400 children removed from a West Texas polygamist compound.

Tuesday Child Protective Services confirmed that some of the 437 children now in state custody would be housed there at least temporarily after a judge’s order Tuesday cleared the way to put the children in foster care.

For the last two weeks, the children have been housed in San Angelo’s city coliseum.

Lawyers inside the coliseum who were meeting Tuesday with their adult or child clients say Children's Protective Services installed tight security and no one was allowed in or out of the coliseum while the children were loaded onto buses.

State district Judge Barbara Walther signed the order earlier Tuesday allowing the state to begin moving the children into temporary foster care facilities including group homes or other privately run facilities while the state completes DNA testing of the 437 children and at least 175 adults and until individual custody hearings can be completed by June.

In a press release, CPS said most of the facilities to which children will be transferred “have the ability to keep these children separate from the other children currently placed at the facility.”

It said information about the background and culture of the children has been provided to the facilities.

In 1993, the Methodist Home sheltered children who left the Branch Davidian compound during the 51-day standoff outside of Waco.