January 20-26, 2005

city beat

You've Got Jail

In their backyard: Bernadine Hawes is among those who live near the future Youth Study Center site who wish they'd have been consulted. Photo By: Michael T. Regan

The Youth Study Center found a perfect new home. Too bad the neighbors had no say.

by Doron Taussig

Roland Shelton didn't find out until he read about it in the paper. Bernadine Hawes heard it through the grapevine. And the Rev. Joseph Okonski's first clue came when a reporter asked him for his opinion on the matter.

By the time most of their West Philly community knew the city was thinking of building a juvenile detention facility in its midst, it was too late to do anything about it.

Logan Square's Youth Study Center, an antiquated and ill-equipped building, will soon be torn down to make room for the Barnes Museum. Its replacement, the Thurgood Marshall Study Center, is expected to open in 2007 on a tract of land at 48th and Haverford. Residents of the somewhat ramshackle neighborhood surrounding the site say that the decision to locate the facility here was made without their consent or, in large part, their knowledge. The resentment that this "surreptitious" process, as one resident called it, has bred may negatively affect the relationship between the Marshall Center and its new neighbors.

There are certain institutions that people, historically, don't want in their communities, and detention centers top the list. Even as you read this, Delanco Township in New Jersey (just 15 miles from Center City) is fighting an effort to convert an old mansion into a home for juvenile delinquents. Residents have protested that inmates could get from the home into their backyards "in 10 seconds."

good neighbor policy: NIMBYism never affected the Youth Study Center at its home off the Ben Franklin Parkway.

That said, detention centers can coexist peacefully with neighbors. The keys to friendly relations, according to Philadelphia Prison System Commissioner Leon King II, are preventing incidents such as escapes and remaining "involved with the neighborhood." Rickie Sanders, a professor of geography and urban studies at Temple University, adds that "community buy-in" is of the utmost importance: If a community feels it has lent its consent to a facility, it will be much less likely to resent it as an intruder.

The attempt to secure community buy-in for the Marshall Center was a single community meeting, organized by city Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell and state Sen. Vincent Hughes. About 30 people attended, several of whom were officials involved in the planning. But the meeting may not have been very well-publicized.

"I never engaged in any discussion regarding moving the center here, never received a notice," says Hawes, who sits on the development committee at St. Ignatius Convent at 43rd and Haverford. Okonski, the pastor at St. Ignatius, was similarly in the dark. "There were no fliers. This is basically news to me," says Okonski. As it was to Della Clark, president of the Enterprise Center, a neighborhood development agency that will share a property with the Marshall Center. "I did not receive notification of any community meeting," says Clark.

Publicity may not have been the only problem. Residents who did attend the meeting did not feel fully included in the decision-making process.

"At the meeting we were told not consulted. And we're not happy about this," says Fern Wesley, a member of the home association of the nearby Nehemiah West housing development. "I think if we'd been consulted we would have said no." Nehemiah West resident Roland Shelton was not aware of the meeting, but says he has spoken with neighbors who attended and came away with the same impression as Wesley.

Hughes is not surprised by community unease —

"some folks obviously have some concerns," he says — but he believes that in the end, residents will be satisfied with their role. "Folks in the community are going to be involved in planning, and there will be an advisory board of community people, and they will have real input, not for show." He says the community meeting he organized was "very preliminary," and that he remembers getting "positive feedback" at it.

Blackwell did not return numerous calls for comment.

Residents say that an effort to protest the center is unlikely, but it's not for lack of resentment. Rather, the neighborhood feels disenfranchised. "People will talk but not really act," predicts Wesley. Asks Shelton, "What could [the population of Nehemiah West] do now? This is the way they do things in this city."

The Marshall Center may get built without a hitch, but once it's up and operating, its administrators may wish it had made friends with more of its neighbors, Hawes says.

"The community might turn its back on that particular institution," she says. Without community cooperation, the center "misses opportunities to support the youth," and if something goes wrong, they may "want to give it the boot."