When 13-year-old Mike Spencer arrived at a West Haven group home for at-risk youths, he broke things and punched people when he was mad. A year and a half later, Spencer is now getting ready to leave the home run by Futures Through Choices and start life in a foster home.
"I've done a lot better on my anger and talking a little more to people," said Spencer, whose name has been changed. "I kind of struggled at first and then I got back in gear and changed it around."
Spencer is one of 140 residents at Futures Through Choices group homes, which provide rehabilitation to children and young adults in custody of the state through the Division of Juvenile Justice, the Division of Child and Family Services and Services for People with Disabilities.
Jerry Jefferies, chief executive officer of Futures Through Choices, said Spencer is typical of most residents in the homes because he has an IQ lower than 80 and has explosive behavior problems that often lead to criminal activity.
"Crimes tend to mount for these kids. They're reactive. They're impulsive," Jefferies said.
Those reactive personalities and criminal backgrounds are why many Holladay residents are fiercely contesting a proposal by Futures Through Choices to start a group home in their community that is similar to the one in West Haven.
The key difference in the homes is that the Holladay home will serve five boys sent from the Division of Juvenile Justice who are adjudicated felons between the ages of 16 and 21. The 10 residents at the West Haven home are between 12 and 18 and are generally referred from DCFS because of unmanageable behavior that has led to crimes like property destruction and assault.
Brandon Baker, who lives five houses down from the proposed group home at 2180 E. Sunnybrook Way, said he does not want a facility with felons in the middle of his quiet, residential Holladay neighborhood.
"I feel like my responsibility is to protect my family, and this is just insane," Baker said. "It doesn't make any sense to put a non-secure facility in the midst of a neighborhood."
The group home does not have any security personnel but is required to have 24-hour supervision of the residents and maintains a 3-1 resident to staff ratio. There are also two staff members awake at night.
That constant supervision is enough to keep the residents under control and out of trouble with neighbors, Jefferies said. In the five years since the West Haven home started, he said there has only been one problem with the public when a home member stole a cell phone at school.
The biggest problem is non-compliant behavior that is mostly contained inside the home, Jefferies said.
"Our kids throw temper tantrums. They don't tend to be premeditated or predatory," he said. "If you tell them no, you might get a reaction."
Jefferies said he predicts the Holladay home will have the same limited number of incidents that do not directly affect neighboring residents. The image of criminal youth intent on harming the community is an unfortunate and unfair stereotype that is turning Holladay residents against the home, Jefferies said.
"The risk issue got blown way out of proportion. The idea that these kids are sitting in a bush waiting to jump out and rape someone is 180 degrees from the truth," he said.
Following safety concerns of residents that surfaced in city meetings in July, Blake Chard at the Division of Juvenile Justice suggested that the home exclude adjudicated sex offenders. Residents like Missy Larsen, who lives near the proposed home site, said that is simply not enough of a concession.
The main sticking-point for Larsen is that once the city issues a license for a group home, the population can change because Futures Through Choices can move residents between homes without approval from the state.
"The state places these people in your city and then pretty much says you're on your own," she said. "It's this really obscure large span of who is going to be allowed in the home."
Ben Horman, a therapist at the West Haven group home, said the chance of shifting populations is slight because such a move would disrupt the residents' therapy. Moreover, Horman said state agencies carefully review offenders to determine if a secure facility or a community home is best.
"The intake process is so strenuous that no one will be in the home who shouldn't be," he said.
Offenders who are placed in group homes are there because they will benefit from treatment designed to prepare them to enter the community as self-controlled adults, Horman said.
Each of the residents in the West Haven home has specific goals and skills they are working on like communication, compliance with authority and non-physical means of expression.
Spencer, for example, has a book filled with worksheets he has done to help him meet his goal of being less violent. One sheet lists 10 situations that make him angry and then a bad and a good solution to each problem. When people argue with him, Spencer has written down that he can either "sock them" or politely ask them to stop. Looking back through his worksheets reminds Spencer to opt for the latter solution, Horman said.
"He (Horman) teaches me how to manage my anger," Spencer said.
When residents meet their goals they move closer to their release to foster homes. In the Holladay home, the process would be slightly different because the residents would be working toward independent living instead of placement in foster care.
"We are trying to teach them how to take these skills and be successful in the community," Horman said. "Using natural consequences within the home is more effective than treating them like criminals."
Although Holladay citizens say a residential neighborhood is no place for such a group home, Jefferies said a community like Holladay is the ideal place to teach group home residents how to integrate back into society.
"We don't want to put our people in a high crime area. You want them in a pro-social community with the values you want them associated with," he said. "Basically, everything they (Holladay residents) think is bad about it, I think is great."
But Larsen said she's not buying it. She said she would rather see the home placed on the outskirts of a town instead of in her or anyone else's neighborhood.
Larsen and a group of Holladay residents met with Gov. Olene Walker last week to discuss their concerns about the home. Walker's spokeswoman, Amanda Covington, said the governor is convinced that group homes are the best way to deal with some young criminals but is not convinced that Holladay is the best location for one.
Holladay city officials are reviewing the location, which is legally zoned for a group home, to decide if the facility falls into the exempt category of a use that may cause harm to neighbors. If that decision is made, the city could turn away the group home.
Jose Barela, a program coordinator for Futures Through Choices, said the idea that group home residents would harm neighbors is a byproduct of misinformation that has led to hysteria among Holladay citizens.
One of those misconceptions, he said, was a statistic that an average of one group home resident a month goes absent without leave.
The figure was taken out of context by citizens, Barela said, because the definition the group homes uses for AWOL is simply a resident who is not where he is supposed to be at any given time. That could simply mean that a resident is in the basement when he is supposed to be at dinner, he said.
"Their conception is that these kids are running through the neighborhood," Barela said. "These kids are never unsupervised."
Holladay city officials have not yet set a decision date for the group home. Jefferies said his group homes are always met with resistance from neighbors, but that since the home is an allowable land use he would consider legal recourse to obtain a city license.
E-mail: estewart@desnews.com