Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, November 28, 1993                   TAG: 9311280021
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RANTOUL, ILL.                                LENGTH: Short

GROUP PLANS TO HOUSE KIDS ON FORMER BASE

Hope for Children is focusing on children under 8 years old who are wards of the state and unlikely to be nurtured in conventional homes. Many of them are victims of abuse and have emotional or physical disabilities.

With $1 million in state funding, the nonprofit group plans to house about 50 children and 12 sets of parents on Chanute Air Force Base by spring. By the end of 1994, it hopes to care for 200 children in 80 homes, said agency director Penelope Soskin.

The parents will be paid to raise the youngsters. Some buildings will house up to 80 senior citizens, who will pay low rent in exchange for helping the children, parents or staff, Soskin said.

It's not the first program for young people at the 2,500-acre base, which has nearly 300 buildings, as well as a golf course and bowling alley. A boot camp for high school dropouts opened Sept. 19.

Also, Clinicare Corp. is studying plans to take over the base hospital and provide care for children with behavioral disorders. Another group wants state funding to open a two-year military boarding school there.

The community of 20,000 in east-central Illinois has been searching for a major employer to replace the economic input of the base, which had 12,000 workers before it closed Sept. 30.

The Defense Department rejected a bid from followers of the transcendental meditation guru Maharishi Mahash Yogi, who wanted to turn the entire base into a campus of Maharishi International University.