PORTLAND — The Oregon Department of Human Services has agreed to stop temporarily housing foster kids in hotels or offices except under certain circumstances.

The department is defending itself against a lawsuit filed by children’s advocates challenging its practice of housing foster children in those settings.

The department and plaintiffs in the lawsuit reached an interim settlement agreement earlier this month.

The agreement, publicly announced Tuesday, states that effective Dec. 31, DHS will cease placing children overnight in DHS offices unless there is no “available and safe hotel” within 30 miles or 30 minutes of the office.

DHS has agreed to not house children in its care for more than two nights in a DHS office prior to Dec. 31.

The agreement also says that foster children will be placed in hotels only in “emergency circumstances” where no “safe or appropriate” licensed residential placement or certified foster home is available.

Further, a foster child who is housed temporarily in DHS offices or hotels must continue to attend the school or daycare in which he or she is enrolled, according to the agreement.

Settlement talks continue in the case, according to Youth Rights and Justice, a Portland group that is providing legal representation to the two young plaintiffs.

The parties have agreed to stay all action in the lawsuit while confidential settlement discussions continue.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the two Multnomah County children, who are represented by guardian ad litem Richard Vangelisti.

The plaintiffs, in essence, wanted the court to require DHS to stop housing kids in hotels or offices.

Neither party is waiving argument, but the interim settlement agreement means that the plaintiffs have agreed that putting a child up in a hotel temporarily, for the time period in the agreement, is an acceptable exception to what they argue is a generally “nonpermissible” practice.

DHS has said that beds for children in foster care are increasingly scarce; since this summer, it has been under scrutiny both for persistent safety problems and for putting children up temporarily in hotels and its field offices.

Some foster children have also been held in juvenile detention or in hospitals when they no longer needed a high level of medical care.

DHS, under the agreement, also must not “seek” to place kids in detention centers temporarily. At least one foster child in Deschutes County has been held in the local juvenile detention facility.

The agency must not also keep children in hospitals in the absence of a medical purpose, unless the child faces a safety risk.

DHS has also agreed to provide the number of children and a number of other information about children it houses temporarily in emergency lodging to the plaintiffs every week.

The lawsuit claimed that the data DHS had released about the number of children in its care who had been housed in hotels or offices was incomplete.

DHS, through a spokesman, had no additional comment on the interim settlement agreement Tuesday.

Child welfare issues will likely continue to be the subject of discussion going into the legislative session, which is scheduled to get underway in February.

In late August, a consulting firm, Public Knowledge, LLC, found the state had a number of gaps when it comes to how safety issues are reported and addressed in the foster care system.

Pending senate confirmation, the governor’s new foster care advisory commission will study foster care issues and recommend legislation.