Residents and community leaders in Queens Village are strongly opposed to a plan to convert a former school into a facility for delinquent children who have committed crimes as part of the state’s “Close to Home” law.
The law, enacted in 2012 by the Cuomo administration, seeks to bring young offenders from facilities upstate closer to their families and lawyers in the city.
The city’s Administration of Children’s Services (ACS) has targeted the building at 207-01 Jamaica Ave., the former home of the Merrick Academy charter school, to be the facility for troubled city youngsters, who have been arrested before they turned 16 years old and are considered “at-risk.” The city agency is hoping to house 18 youth offenders at the site in a “group home” setting, and The Children’s Village will operate the site under a contract with ACS.
However, Queens Village residents said they have not been adequately informed about the plan and don’t want teens with criminal backgrounds in their residential neighborhood, fearing they could escape and harm the community.
6 comments:
Weren't they just building new schools? But yet here's a school that's empty, if schools are so overcrowded, why not use this school instead of building new ones all over the place? I'm sure they can get kids to go there, it's probably right by the q27, q88 buses.
"Close to Home" is code for "put it in the poor communities where the political backlash is least." What a ploy...
Solution:
Have one of these in every neighborhood, so that each and every neighborhood will carry their weight, and have one for their troubled youth.
Poster#3 - sounds good , but you do realize that most of the troubled youth they are talking about probably come from that area which is why want to place it "close to home".
There was a group home in Bayside a few years ago. It is now closed down. It was run by an organization called St. Vincent.
They need to put that south of Jamaica Ave being a resident of Queens Village my whole life we know south of the LIRR and Jamaica Ave is where the rough side really is
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