Somerset Home for Temporarily Displaced Children
Jeffrey Fetzko, ACSW, LSW, CFRE
Vol. 6, No. 10, May 15, 2008
The Executive Director's News is published every two weeks, and is specifically written for the employees, board of trustees and friends of the Somerset Home. This issue and past issues are available on our web site at http://www.somersethome.org/main/pages/employee_newsletter.htm.
26 Years Ago...
On May 3, 2008 I began my 27th year as executive director and 35 years from the date I started my work at Somerset Home. Over the years, many people have asked, "How did you get into this work?" I could say that I had a deep concern about social welfare injustices and decided to pursue a mission in child welfare advocacy. But that all came later, about a year after working at Somerset Home. The reason I first got involved was quite by accident. I was a 19 year old college student who needed a summer job and my neighbor happened to be the first director of the agency.
I started working at Somerset Home in 1973 as a youth counselor. We had just opened our doors and there were no kids yet, but we were in business. After three days, our first kid arrived, Halley, a sixteen year old girl. She had been remanded to the shelter having just appeared before a juvenile court judge after her latest runaway incident. She was well known to the court having runaway from home 17 times. Prior to March of 1973, runaways could be incarcerated in juvenile jail, but the law had changed and now Halley could no longer be legally detained. Halley was dealing with some significant family problems and chose to escape domestic violence resulting from out of control alcohol abuse by her parents. It was hard to disagree with her decision to run away from this stressful environment. It seemed inconceivable that this young person would be incarcerated a dozen times for running away from this home.
During our first year at Somerset Home, we saw many youth who were truant from school, kids who ran away and those kids who would not listen to their parents and were labeled, "incorrigible". Something stuck with me in those early days. Dozens and dozens of kids who had done nothing wrong were being punished by society. There seemed to be a lack of "social justice".
One thing that became clear; laws had to change in order for these kids to be treated humanely by the system. Somerset Home has always been involved in working with social policy issues, including legal advocacy and in the absence of law, writing law. One of my proudest accomplishments, on behalf of runaway and homeless youth, was the creation of the NJ Homeless Youth Act. This law gives youth the right to seek safety from abuse. The knowledge that a runaway or homeless youth can find safety from the streets by walking-in to a shelter without a court order or DYFS involvement greatly strengthened a fundamental individual right and forced the child welfare system to take a giant step toward social justice. Now, imagine if we had such a law in every state...
Homeless Youth Act Team (left to right): Jim White, Covenant House International President; Kevin Ryan, former NJ Department of Children and Families Commissioner; Linda Gyimoty, Harbor House Executive Director, Toms River; Lisa Eisenbud, former NJ Department of Children Youth and Families Chief of Staff; Jeffrey Fetzko, Somerset Home Executive Director; Eileen Henderson, Center for Families Vice President, Camden; Catherine Ashman, NJ Child Advocate Office; Joe Earhardt, Middlesex County Juvenile Services; Judy Hutton, YMCA of Princeton Executive Director.
This photo was taken at Covenant House in Atlantic City moments after Governor Christie Whitman had signed the Homeless Youth Act into law in 1999.
Somerset Home has conducted countless hours of advocacy work on behalf of runaway and homeless youth over 35 years. Next month I will join a small group of child advocates at the Law School of the University of Washington in Seattle to share what we have learned in New Jersey when we created the 'Homeless Youth Act'. Our task will be to create a blueprint for a model 'Homeless Youth Act' type state law. There are only a handful of states that have such a state law and dozens of states currently engaged in developing one. In 1999, a small group of caring individuals came together and created this law for New Jersey's most vulnerable youth and our goal is for every state to have such a law.
In 1973, in the formative days of Somerset Home, a small group caring staff and board of trustees somehow figured out how to create a viable, responsible and important social services agency. Time has passed quickly, and while many things have changed, sadly, one common thread remains...the kids still need us, social injustices still occur and victims are still blamed. We have accomplished so much and yet, still have much to do. Our everyday work extends beyond the walls of our residential program buildings, to the legislatures of every state and to the congress in Washington, D.C. The impact of our work is felt by kids we know very well and some we will never meet.
I thank you all for your support and look forward to many more years of working with you on behalf of the youth who rely on us for assistance.
Graduate School Acceptance News
Anna Gomah - Rutgers University School of Social Work (MSW)
Megan Kayser - Monmouth University School of Social Work (MSW)
Danielle Sutton - Rutgers University School of Social Work (MSW)
Sorry Ladies, It's Not a Swimming Pool
Work began yesterday on the emergency fire exit at Whitney House. We are very happy to be completing a long planned project that will provide an added measure of safety and security to our young ladies living at Whitney House.
State going around in circles
Sunday, May 04, 2008
Editorial - Paul Mulshine
Reprinted from the NJ Star Ledger
Last week this newspaper carried an article about one of the worst traffic bottlenecks in New Jersey. That's a very competitive category, but the Somerville Circle certainly ranks high.
As writer Jeanette Rundquist noted, the circle sits in the center of the state. If you want to get from Point A to Point B, Point C or Point D in that neck of the woods, chances are you'll be stuck in that circle.
Don't worry, though, the geniuses in Trenton have a plan for the place. They're going to see to it that thousands of units of new housing are built nearby, bringing with them many more thousands of cars to clog the circle. That should help.
It's all part of the new Council on Affordable Housing guidelines. The council, commonly known as COAH, issues mandates every few years for the amount of affordable housing that should be built in every town. The latest mandates call for about 187,000 new units to be built around the state, according to a town-by-town analysis by the Hill-Wallack law firm, which specializes in housing law.
The number for just one of the towns that abuts the circle, Bridgewater Township, is 1,711. Multiply that by five and you'll see how many new houses would be built in Bridgewater if developers are permitted to use the so-called "builder's remedy," which permits them to build four market-rate units for each unit that will be sold below cost. And then multiply that by two cars per household. Add it all up, and you've got gridlock. You've also got suburban sprawl, which is something Trenton politicians claim to oppose.
So what's the point of this exercise? Pat Flannery wishes she knew.
"We're already fully developed," says Flannery, who is the Bridgewater mayor. "We have hardly any vacant lots."
The COAH was set up by the Legislature in response to the state Supreme Court's Mount Laurel decisions. The theory was that suburban towns needed to be forced to include low-cost housing because they practiced exclusionary zoning.
"We didn't have exclusionary zoning," said Flannery. If Bridgewater did, it wouldn't have been able to cram 15,000 housing units into the 33 square miles of the township.
And they're not going to be able to cram all those new units into what little open space remains. Neither are the other towns tar geted for the COAH quotas. As I noted in a prior column, COAH included the Garden State Parkway right-of-way in Cranford's inventory of open space. In Morris County, the state's idea of developable open space includes back yards and playgrounds.
Meanwhile some towns that are located in the Highlands region have been given COAH quotas re quiring that housing be built in the same places that have been put off- limits to development by the Highlands Council.
And then there's the question of property taxes, another favorite target of the Trenton crowd. Imagine that Bridgewater, or any of the hundreds of other towns targeted for growth, were to add all those new units. They'd also have to add new classrooms and teachers, at considerable expense.
Of course, they could always add some new office or commercial ratables to spread the tax burden, right? Wrong. Adding commercial ratables adds more affordable- housing requirements.
Don't worry. The geniuses in Trenton have an answer to that. A bill now before the Legislature would impose a 2.5 percent tax on every new commercial development in the state to fund affordable housing. The theory is that those new businesses will require new workers and those new workers will require housing.
That theory is flawed, says state Assemblyman Mike Doherty, a Republican from Warren County. It doesn't account for all the residents in places like Warren who commute long distances and might want to work closer to home. "Especially with the price of gas get ting higher and higher, people don't want to drive 60 miles to work," said Doherty.
Again, you'd think the Trenton crowd would want to get commut ers off the road. But then again, you'd think that the point of the affordable-housing law is to induce builders to build affordable hous ing. Instead, many who actually do so are hit with an extra tax. Do herty cites the example of a guy he knows in Oxford Township who renovated a dilapidated building to create four rental units.
"The thanks from the state of New Jersey was getting hit with a tax for affordable housing," said Doherty.
An affordable housing tax to discourage people from building affordable housing? It sounds crazy, as does everything else that comes out of Trenton these days. But Do herty sees a method in the Democrats' madness.
"If the current administration keeps killing the economy, then everyone will leave the state. Housing prices will drop," he said. "So maybe that's their strategy."
Well, at least it would solve the traffic problem.
Paul Mulshine may be reached at pmulshine@starledger.com. To comment on his column go to NJVoices.com.
As always, thank you all for your continued hard work on behalf of our youth.
