Youth Help Drops Quest For West Central Facility

A Spokane youth-care organization has backed away from plans to put a facility for at-risk kids in the West Central neighborhood after residents mobilized in protest.

The Youth Help Association decided Friday not to pursue a permit required to turn a facility at 1212 N. Summit Blvd. from a home for elderly and mentally ill into a short-term treatment center for troubled youths.

YHA Executive Director Bernadine Spalla said outcry from West Central residents was a deciding factor in the organization’s decision.

“As we’ve said all along, we need to look at the neighborhood’s interest; we need to put those concerns in perspective to our own,” said Spalla. “It’s not a good way of getting into a neighborhood by pushing it down their throats.”

A group called Friends of West Central organized in protest when the city planning director approved the YHA’s request to ease zoning restrictions. The area surrounding the site, including a Kirtland Cutter-designed home built in 1905, is zoned for single-family residences.

Neighbors were concerned that the treatment center, expected to house 20 at-risk youths ages 6 to 17, would undermine efforts to improve the neighborhood.

Cheryl Steele said the neighborhood understood the need for the facility but said West Central already has its share of social problems. The neighborhood has an unusually large number of registered sex offenders and already has several group homes.

“It doesn’t feel good saying no to youths,” said Steele. “We are looking at what’s best for this neighborhood.”

Dan Simpson, a real estate developer, said neighborhood homes would lose value.

“If you can find a similar home in different neighborhood without the (treatment center), you will do it,” Simpson said.

West Central resident Chris Peck, editor of The Spokesman-Review, was one of the organizers of the group opposing the treatment center for troubled youth. He said the neighborhood would be happy to see the site’s current residents remain but would fight any change that “put more burden on the neighborhood.”

But YHA officials said the concerns could have been alleviated if residents understood the purpose of the treatment center.

The facility is designed to provide short-term mediation and treatment for youths and parents who are at odds. Counseling would be given to the entire family. The center would not house youths who had long or violent criminal records.

“When the general public starts looking at adolescents that need placements, they look at headlines, they look at gang-bangers, they look at chemical or alcohol problems,” said Theresa Wright, director of youth and family services for YHA. “Those are not the kinds of kids we are looking at.”

Spalla said the YHA is looking at two other spots for the center, including one on Spokane’s lower South Hill.

Legal jousting over the site may continue. Property owner Larry Pinkley, angry with the neighborhood, said he is tired of running the congregate care facility and wants to lease the building to someone else. One of the potential takers is a group offering drug and alcohol treatment, according to Pinkley.

“We want to give something that the neighbors can really enjoy,” Pinkley said.

, DataTimes MEMO: Cut in the North Side Voice.