Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, September 3, 1993 TAG: 9309030210
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: FLOYD LENGTH: Long
VMH Inc. of Christiansburg, formerly known as Virginia Mountain Housing, obtained a permit Tuesday in Floyd County to build a 6,270-square-foot group home at the intersection of Virginia 615 and Virginia 705.
The home, which would care for truant and abused children among others, has the support of regional agencies such as several Southwest Virginia school divisions, juvenile court officials and social service departments.
Some Floyd County neighbors oppose the project, but the county has no zoning law that could keep the facility out of their rural neighborhood.
Instead, opponents are raising other issues in hopes of blocking construction.
Linda DeVito and Ellen Vest, both of whom live in the vicinity of the proposed home, have collected 280 signatures on a petition asking the Board of Supervisors to hold public hearings on the project, although the board legally has no control over it.
The group home will house 16 beds, eight each in girls' and boys' wings, and will have its own self-contained school. It will sit on top of a hill a few hundred yards from Virginia 615 in what is now pasture land. Only two other houses, one of them unoccupied, are within sight of the hilltop.
DeVito and Vest question whether the isolated rural setting is the proper location for the home. Virginia 615 is a narrow secondary road, and it could be difficult for emergency vehicles to reach the home during winter, they say. They complain that county officials, including Sheriff Tom Higgins, were not consulted about plans for the home.
Elderly people who live in the vicinity - an area called Possum Hollow - worry that children staying there will run away and harm them or damage their property, said DeVito.
Those planning the project aren't preparing for the worst to happen, DeVito and Vest said. They claim VMH lacks the background to operate the home, and said their conversations with VMH officials did not ease their fears.
The home would serve children who are truants, runaways or have been abandoned or abused, according to information provided to the Floyd supervisors.
Violent offenders would not be referred to the home, according to Robert Sisk Jr. of the state Department of Youth and Family Services.
VMH is a nonprofit corporation that provides low- and moderate-income housing across the state. Formed in 1979 as Virginia Mountain Housing, the corporation changed its name because of its move into other regions of the state and into areas other than home construction.
It has formed a separate corporation, Tekoa Inc., to run the group home.
Sandra Duncan, a former employee of the juvenile court, will be the group home's director. Duncan is a certified family counselor with the state Department of Youth and Family Services.
"The quality of care in this facility will be the best this state can offer," Duncan said in response to neighbors' concerns.
Considering the problems VMH had with residents of Giles County when the home was proposed there, Duncan was asked why VMH had not informed Floyd residents earlier about plans for the home with the idea of winning them over to the project's side.
"We had for 11 months contacted who we thought were the appropriate parties," Duncan responded. "In my opinion, we did involve the community."
Duncan said various agencies in the New River Valley that deal with young people were consulted. An application for state funding contains letters of support from several of those agencies, including Southwest Virginia school divisions, social service departments and the juvenile court.
"I am pleased with your efforts toward establishing a treatment facility in our area," Juvenile and Domestic Relations Judge Patrick Graybeal of Montgomery County wrote to Duncan on July 30. "I believe that such a resource would greatly benefit the children and families that are served by the courts."
Plans for the home in Floyd became public July 7, when Duncan briefed County Administrator Randy Arno. Arno told the Board of Supervisors about the project at a meeting later that day.
Duncan said plans for the project were not definite enough before July 7 to go to the county supervisors.
Arno is angry that state agencies, which are funding construction of the home or who will pay rent to house juveniles there, had not involved the local government in the project earlier.
"They just don't seem to be very interested on the state level about what locals want or they don't want," Arno said.
William Whitlock, the county supervisor who represents the Possum Hollow area, said he has received two calls about the home, but those people were not as concerned when they learned the county had nothing to do with the project.
"If [the home is] run right, with the right personnel running it, it can turn out to be a good thing," Whitlock said. "Something like that's needed for our youth."
The Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development has reserved a $350,000 loan to pay for construction of the home but has not committed to providing the loan, said Becky Christensen, the department's program manager. VMH has also applied for a $40,000 state grant to furnish the home.
Duncan said she hopes to have the home open for its first occupants by March.
The state Department of Social Services will license and regulate the facility.
Doris Jenkins, Social Services official in Richmond, said her department has not received an application for a license for the home. VMH is still in the early stages of securing a license and has yet to develop policies and procedures and other information about the operation, which the state must approve.
State licensing standards require that residential facilities for children be located in a place "reasonably accessible to schools, transportation, medical and psychiatric resources, churches, and recreational and cultural facilities."
Whether a home meets those standards is decided based on the type of program involved, said John Allen, coordinator of the state's Interdepartmental Regulation of Children's Residential Facilities.
Allen noted that two wilderness programs for children are licensed in the state, including one in Craig County operated by the Virginia Baptist Children's Home in Salem.
VMH's Floyd County home will house boys and girls, ages 11 to 17, who have been referred by local social service departments and other agencies, according to one of the organization's grant applications. Juvenile court judges could refer children to the home, but that doesn't mean they would be accepted, Duncan said.
Of the home's 16 beds, 14 would be used for long-term residents and two will be for children in need of emergency care. The counties of Floyd, Montgomery, Pulaski, Giles, Carroll, Grayson and Wythe will get first chance at vacant beds.
In May, those counties had 32 children in residential care in other areas of the state. The counties spent $1.1 million for housing children in group homes last year, according to the grant application. Duncan said VMH's Floyd County home could provide those services more cheaply.
It will be better for children from rural Southwest Virginia to stay in the area near their families rather than being sent to a home in an urban area, Duncan said. The success of children in the home would depend on the involvement of their families, she said.
The home would provide 18 full- or part-time jobs in Floyd County, Duncan said. In addition to two live-in house parents, who would occupy their own wing of the home, two staff members - one each in the boys' and girls' wings - would be awake and on duty around the clock, she said.
The group home's history can be traced to a 1989 study of the Montgomery County juvenile justice system that outlined the need for a group home for children in the region.
From the $350,000 state housing loan, $60,000 would be spent for the land, $244,000 for the building and $36,000 for site work, with $10,000 set aside in a contingency account. A separate $40,000 state rural development grant would be used to help furnish the home, advertise it and pay salaries until it opened.
VMH has a contract to buy the Possum Hollow site from Fred Allen Nolen, a juvenile court employee in Pulaski. Only two sites were considered, and both were offered by people she knew, Duncan said.
DeVito and Vest questioned VMH's choice of Nolen's land because the juvenile court has been an advocate for the home.
Becky Christensen, program manager for the state Department of Housing and Community Development, said the department will appraise the property if it approves the loan. If the department thinks the price is too high, it will not approve it, she said.
Duncan said she respects the efforts of county residents to protect their quality of life in the county but said she doesn't believe the home will hurt them.
by CNB