Group homes for young offenders hurt communities
The Sun's recent editorials concerning group homes (April 25 and 26) suggest that they are the best way to treat the juvenile delinquests you call emotionally disabled. But where is the proof?
The recent protest against placing a group home in Worthington Valley was not against the truly disabled or senior citizens; we would have no anxiety about such neighbors. Rather, we questioned the safety and effectiveness of group homes for juvenile offenders.
Finding that group homes were ineffective, California has recently undertaken "Project Uplift," which replaces group homes with "wraparound services" that give children and families intensive therapy and aid at home.
Closer to home, the District of Columbia recently closed numerous group homes, including some run by companies that operate Maryland homes.
In Worthington Valley, Maryland Family Advocacy Services (FAS) asked for a license to operate a staff-secure, short-term transitional facility for eight juvenile males who had been released from criminal detention centers.
They would have required 24-hour supervision and been prohibited from interacting with the community. If they can't interact with the commmunity, what is the benefit of the group home setting?
In Worthington Valley, state officials never approached the community until news of the group home plans leaked. They understood that placing this home in an ethnically diverse community of hard-working people with young children was going to be a problem.
Claims that the Fair Housing Acts protects homes like this are questionable, as the act allows for exceptions when the homes threaten public health and safety.
The state seems to have created a bureaucracy mandated to get kids out of institutions and into group homes -- no matter the cost to neighborhoods. For-profit companies with nonprofit sounding names have stepped in to make a lucrative living off government subsidies for these homes.
If we really care about these kids, we should draft good legislation that will help rehabilitate them in their own homes. Parents should be responsible for their kids, not some distant neighborhood.
Alan B. Fabian, Chestnut Ridge
Homes and neighborhoods can work together better
"What happens to a neighborhood when a group home opens? Often, nothing." So began The Sun's April 26 editorial, "Easing tensions over group home."
For those who provide supports to people with disabilities, what you call "nothing" is an acceptable outcome.
Most community organizations, however, strive for much more. Community programs that support people with disabilities offer the hope of meaningful lives that are connected in real ways to neighbors, family and friends.
The Sun is be commended for its responsible perspective on group homes. Rather than fuel innuendo and hype, you've offered calm reflection to those embroiled in this debate.
Diane Hutto McComb, Severna Park
The writer is executive director of the Maryland Association of Community Services for Persons with Developmental Disabilities Inc.
Route 219 not expanded in Garrett County
In The Sun's April 28 article "3 Md. road projects rated among most wasteful in U.S.," Taxpayers for Common Sense characterized "the expansion of U.S. Route 219 in Garrett County" as one of those projects. This is incorrect.
The only U.S. 219 project in Maryland's six-year transportation plan is a two-lane, five-mile bypass still in the preliminary planning stages for the Garrett County seat of Oakland.
The taxpayer group said that Maryland committed $700 million from the Transportation Equity Act to the Route 219/Continental One travel corridor. Unfortunately, that is not the case. The state has committed no money for the development of Continental One.
Taxpayers for Common Sense has every right to voice its opposition to any government highway project, but it has a responsibility to present the facts.
David Moe, Oakland
The writer is president of the Garrett County Chamber of Commerce.
Reimer was right about the guns ...
I say "Amen" to Susan Reimer's April 27 column, "Bottom line: The guns must go." As she says, "A kid can't mow down his classmates with a kitchen knife or a set of brass knuckles. He can only do that with guns."
That's the perfect answer to the gun lobby's cry of "Guns don't kill; people do."
No one denies the problems of a society that leads a few teen misfits to carry out mass murder are more complex than just easy access to guns. But while we struggle to deal with the complex issues, let's do what we can to limit angry people's ability to express rage against innocent victims.
Dr. Gary Goshorn, Towson
I agree completely with Ms. Reimer's account of guns and the Columbine High School tragedy. I am tired of all the pro-gun rhetoric that says that if we ban guns, we will still have problems like the explosives the students planted. I'm sorry, but no one died that day from explosives. They were all killed by guns.
Some also claim the problem is American movies, television and video games. These are widely exported around the world, but we are just about the only country where such shootings seem to happen regularly.
It's so simple: Other countries don't allow guns. We do.
Marian Grant, Reisterstown
...But underestimates middle schoolers badly
As a teacher, primarily of middle school students, for seven years, and as a mother of two, I suggest that Susan Reimer underestimates the potential of these admittedly challenging years.
Ms. Reimer wrote, "It is pointless to try to teach middle-schoolers anything that does not bear on personal appearance, gossip or the opposite sex." But my daily experience belies that generalization.
Earlier the day her column appeared, my seventh-graders had wrestled with imagery and metaphor in Robert Frost's poem "Fire and Ice," a heated discussion that would not end when the bell rang for break. My eighth-grade seminar on T.S. Eliots "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" lasted almost an hour -- and only stopped because we had to move on to a game reviewing the history of the Roman Empire.
On my way to writing this letter, I was interrupted by three 13-year-old girls arguing about the correct understanding of the symbolic device of the mockingbird in Harper Lee's "To Kill A Mockingbird."
These are typical, daily examples. I do not teach a "gifted" class, and my stories are not unique -- many of my colleagues share the excitement I find in teaching these youngsters.
It is challenging to teach this age group but not because they aren't interested in academics. They are like all children and adults -- writ large. Their joys and sorrows are more intense than other people's. Their concerns with the social world and themselves are more acute.
But how much the better for us when we teach them poetry or literature.
My experience has been that middle-schoolers will live up or down to the expectations of adults whom they respect. If they sense contempt or intellectual dismissal, they will fulfill Ms. Reimer's prediction that "they will not shut up long enough to learn anything."
If they sense caring and a belief in their ability to achieve excellence, they will astound and delight those of us for whom it is a privilege to be entrusted with their education and their future.
Leslie Smith Rosen, Baltimore
The writer teaches at Krieger Schechter Middle School and Rosenbloom Religious School.
Moral standards, not guns, are the core of our problems
Why do we continue to ignore the truth: It's not the gun that kills, it's the person who pulls the trigger. With some ingenuity, bombs and guns can easily be made. The only people who will suffer from stricter gun controls are the innocent.
Blaming guns for our problems is just a way to shift blame from our society's falling moral standards. We must admit our failure in this regard and act to cure it. The cure lies in giving respect and attention to God, our families, our children and each other.
Gary Gamber, Owings Mills
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Pub Date: 5/04/99