Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 6, 1994 TAG: 9402060012
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: C-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune
DATELINE: CHICAGO LENGTH: Long
But the stories that unfolded Thursday about those children, their families and the circumstances that brought them to 219 N. Keystone Ave. revealed a far more complex picture than the one first seen Wednesday.
Maxine Melton, mother of five of the children, worked hard to keep her family together, friends and relatives said. At 26, she was something of a matriarch, who opened her home as a place of last resort for her sisters and their children.
In that home, the children apparently were not subjected to the kind of physical trauma that is all too common in a city that sees a child abused to death, on average, every other week.
The children were hungry when police found them late Tuesday, but they were not malnourished, according to initial medical examinations. They were attending school regularly.
And as filthy as the home was when police arrived, the children were in relatively good health.
Still, while the case was not as horrible as some that have unfolded in Chicago, it was deplorable enough to create a furor.
The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services took formal custody of 21 children. A 4-year-old boy with cerebral palsy remained at Children's Memorial Hospital; 15 children who were brought to the DCFS emergency shelter were placed in foster homes; another child was placed with a relative; and three more stayed at the shelter.
And a baby born Wednesday to 31-year-old Diana Melton remained at Bethany Hospital. That child was born with drugs in its system, authorities said.
DCFS began the process of firing a caseworker who was turned away from the Keystone Avenue home on three occasions but failed to follow up with police. The child-welfare agency, meanwhile, came under more criticism from Chicago Mayor Richard Daley. Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar targeted the caseworker in particular and said any failings by the agency are part of a larger problem.
Misdemeanor charges of child neglect were upgraded to a felony charge of child cruelty against Denise Turner, 20, the mother of the boy with cerebral palsy. Maxine Melton, meanwhile, was ordered held in Cook County Jail in lieu of $50,000 bond on her misdemeanor charge, partly because she violated probation for a drug offense. Denise Melton, 24, the mother of three, was also charged with misdemeanor child neglect, bringing to seven the total number of adults arrested. Five of them have been released on personal recognizance bonds and face hearings Feb. 25.
President Clinton, at a prayer breakfast with Mother Teresa, referred to the story as an example of the social ills threatening America. "Today, this headline in our papers," Clinton said. " `Nineteen children found amid squalor in Chicago apartment.' Not in Calcutta, but in Chicago. Nineteen children living amid human waste and cockroaches, fighting a dog for food."
Vice President Al Gore, visiting Flower Vocational High School, said: "This incident should serve as a warning bell in this country, especially since some of the officials who have discovered it said they've seen other situations. I could show you people in plenty of other cities around this country who can tell you what is happening to all too many families. Drugs are involved, crime is involved with the breakdown of neighborhoods and families."
Chicago officials said the building was never inspected because the city received no complaints and the two-flat does not meet the standards required for annual inspections.
How the Melton family got in the plight that landed seven of them in jail is a story not unusual in the drug-infested, gang-plagued neighborhood they grew up in, friends and relatives said.
Several of their parents have histories of drug abuse and troubles with the law. But friends and relatives say that they have struggled to keep the families together, to feed and clothe the children, even as circumstances and their own personal failings conspired to put the young ones at risk.
Officials at Tilton School, where at least five and as many as eight children from the home attend classes, said three of the pupils were expelled because they were not immunized as required by state law. The principal said that for officials to persuade the expelled children's guardians to come to school to pick them up, officials had to threaten them with calling police or DCFS.
Johnny Melton, 28, an uncle to nearly all of the children, returned to the apartment but declined for the most part to talk with reporters. He did say that the family was unfairly portrayed, that things were not as bad as they seemed. While he sat in the two-bedroom apartment last week, all four burners on the gas range that was said to be long inoperative were firing on high.
At least three of the six mothers, including 20-year-old Denise Turner, battled drug addictions. One of the women had been arrested for prostitution. One of the two men living in the apartment had served time in the state penitentiary on a gun conviction. Most of the mothers were on public aid.
Life was a series of constant challenges, small and large. When Cassandra Melton could no longer come up with rent money for her own place last year, she turned to her sister Maxine, who gave her and her children shelter rather than having them put out on the streets. When two other sisters were left homeless by a fire late last year, Maxine again took them in.
The Keystone Avenue apartment became so crowded only recently, friends and relatives said. And the difficult became unmanageable.
Getting food, for instance, was a major chore, because none of the women had a car. They would have to catch a bus or wait for relatives to transport them. And then food quickly ran out because there were so many people in the house.
The drug-dealing and danger in the neighborhood added even more pressure, relatives said.
Even in the bitter cold and snow, young men hang out in alleys, doorways, abandoned buildings and street corners distributing drugs. There is frequent gunfire.
"Drug dealers would sit on the porch," Johnson said. "Maxine has to run them from in front of the house every day."
Whatever the pressures and the circumstances, the fact is that the children were living in conditions that could at the very best be described as unsanitary. The family dog was eating from the same bowls the children used. Dog feces were found on the floor. The children had few clean clothes. And cockroaches were common. Also, four of the adults living in the home had criminal records.
Those truths fed the outrage that erupted across the nation.
by CNB