25th and Yale DHS group home neighborhood meeting tonight

A neighborhood meeting tonight (August 8, 2013) at 7 p.m. will discuss plans to convert the former Philadelphia Assembly church building at 2545 S. Yale Ave. in Tulsa to a group home for teens in DHS custody.

The meeting will be held at Berean Baptist Church, 21st Street and Darlington Ave.

Several weeks ago Shadow Mountain Behavioral Health System CEO Mike Kistler spoke at the building to interested neighbors about their plans for the property. DHS approached Shadow Mountain about providing a group home for teens in DHS custody. DHS classifies the proposed facility as a Residential Child Care Facility.

The Oklahoma DHS website provides the following description of community-based residential services:

Community-Based Residential Services provide program support management for the care and treatment of youth in Oklahoma Department of Human Services (OKDHS) custody who are determined deprived and whose treatment needs can no longer be met in their own home, a relative's home or in traditional foster family care. The treatment needs for OKDHS custody children may be met either in a group home, specialized community home or in acute or Residential Treatment Care (RTC) facility. These programs are either operated by OKDHS or by an agency or individuals under formal contract with OKDHS and licensed by the Oklahoma Child Care Services as a child placing agency or residential child care facility. In order to meet the complex treatment needs of these youth, Child Welfare Services maintains a continuum of community based residential care placement resources which vary in the level and intensity of treatment services provided.

The conversion to a group home requires the City of Tulsa Board of Adjustment to approve a special exception for the property to be used as a Children's Home, which is in a single-family residential zoning district (RS3). A children's home is classified as Use Unit 2, permitted by special exception in any zoning classification. To approve a special exception, the BOA must find that the proposal will not be injurious to the neighborhood or detrimental to the public welfare.

The case number is BOA-51294. That link leads to a PDF with maps, photos, and aerial views of the property, emails and letters from BOA staff, DHS staff, Shadow Mountain staff, and concerned neighbors about the planned use of the property.

It appears that Shadow Mountain CEO Mike Kistler has been very accessible and responsive to neighbors with questions. He has agreed to a number of conditions to be included in the special exception, including fencing, paving of the parking lot and driveways (currently gravel), no sex offenders, a limit of 16 residents, all of whom must be under 18, requirement to be licensed by OKDHS as a residential child care facility, no identifying signage. The applicant has agreed that the special exception should expire when Shadow Mountain ceases to operate on the site.

Some neighbors are concerned that the property will be owned by a third party and leased to Shadow Mountain. Can the expiration of the special exception if Shadow Mountain ceases to operate there be made a binding and enforceable part of the exception? How would it be enforced? There are also concerns about the teens who will be living there: If these teens cannot be housed in a traditional foster home or with relatives, are they a potential danger to neighbors? Will they have tight enough supervision to keep them under control?

Some local history:

The building's cornerstone has the date of construction as 1953 for the Philadelphia Assembly, "The Church of Brotherly Love," the Rev. L. R. Lynch, Pastor. The building is wedged between the Gracemont subdivision, developed in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and the Lortondale subdivision, famous for its mid-century modern architecture, developed in the mid-1950s. The church's property is adjacent to the Lortondale Pool, a private pool open to members.

Most recently the building has been home to Community of Hope United Church of Christ, somewhat famous for being the home church of two women who were married by the church's then-pastor, Leslie Penrose, in 2004 using a Cherokee Nation marriage license obtained, in my opinion, under false pretenses (the use of initials rather than first names on the license application). The church appears to be out of business. Its website is offline, and its last Facebook wall entry, from September 21, 2012, is the administrative assistant's announcement that she has been laid off. The church's entry in the UCC directory claimed a membership of 116 and an average attendance of 35. A Chinowth and Cohen "for sale" sign has been in front of the building for some time.