A Lack Of Supervision For Oakland's Youth

A Lack Of Supervision For Oakland's Youth

By Lynda Carson September 20, 2006

On September 20, 2006 another young family with child has quietly been moved into a first floor one bedroom apartment at Effies House, which is located around 8 blocks east of Lake Merrit.

On this hot balmy day in Oakland, two young women, one with a baby in her arms and a young boyfriend in tow, hung out in front of their new one bedroom housing unit at Effies House. The young male was telling the tenants passing by, "Hi, we're your new neighbors, our apartment has cock roaches, does yours?"

During their first late afternoon/early evening at Effies House, the teenagers could already be heard screaming throughout the building as they desperately attempted to keep the cock roaches from getting into their food and other belongings.

"No one told us that the apartment was going to be full of cock roaches! We still have the keys to our old place, and we're going to stay there until someone gets rid of these bugs," one of the teens screamed out in anger.

An Oakland-based nonprofit organization called First Place Fund for Youth (also known as First Place), is the name of the organization that placed the young family into the housing unit that was full of cock roaches.

During the past few years, First Place as it's commonly referred to in the community, has been filling up Effies House with it's teenage clientele, and since then the building has been riddled with drug related activity, Police visitations, ambulances, violence, damage to the property, including an array of tresspassers that have been climbing over the property fence in an effort to gain entrance into the building and the young women inside.

First Place Fund for Youth, founded in 1998, targets its services to 16 to 23 year-olds who are preparing to age out of foster care, and the organization provides housing assistance and other types of programs needed by emancipated foster youth.

The records show that First Place had moved a minimum of 3 of their clients into Effies House during late 2003 and early 2004, including one on 9/3/03, another on 10/29/03, and the third on 4/1/04, and may have moved in many more teens into Effies House since late 2003.

According to the First Place website, under the section called Community Integration it states; "First Place master-leases individual rental units throughout the East Bay and subleases them to its participants. This "scattered-site" model is effective because it integrates youth into the community, provides an opportunity to develop independent living skills and removes the stigma of foster care."

Apparently, these kids are not scattered around as much as First Place would want the community to believe after considering how many of these teens end up getting scattered into Effies House.

The stats at First Place also fail to mention what happens to a normal residential building that becomes over loaded with their foster youth, and all of the issues that may arise from so many unsupervised youth being dumped into some of the same building locations throughout the city of Oakland.

Effies House as it's called, like so many other apartment buildings in Oakland with 16 units or more, does not have a resident manager as required under state law. As a result, the First Place teens residing in the building do not have the needed supervision of adults to help them become responsible for their actions or activities while residing in their housing units.

Effies House is a 21 unit building that was built around 1910, and is legally owned and operated by the Ivy Hill Development Corporation, which is actually a front organization for the non-profit housing organization known as the East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation (EBALDC). The upper-management at EBALDC created the Ivy Hill Development Corporation out of thin air when they took over Effies House back around 1997 and wanted to shield their operation's at EBALDC, from what was happening at Effies House.

Due to the lack of state and local oversight at properties with 16 units and more, like so many other nonprofit housing organizations in the Bay Area, the upper management at EBALDC decided that it was much more profitable to dump the resident managers from their buildings, so that they could rent out the resident manager's apartments. Effies House and the Hugh Taylor House in East Oakland are only 2 out of EBALDC's numerous properties that lack a resident manager as required under state law, and as a result the teenagers of First Place may be underserved and at risk at both locations.

According to California state law, it is a breach of the warranty of habitability when the landlord fails to have a resident manager in buildings with 16 units or more, meaning that the landlord has breached the rental contracts of all the tenants residing in such locations.

The tenants at Effies House have repeatedly asked EBALDC staff why there is not a resident manager at their building, and have repeatedly been told that EBALDC's upper management believes that the building is exempt from the California laws pertaining to resident managers.

In regards to the placement of the youth, it is the responsibility of the staff at First Place to ensure that the teenagers they serve are placed into locations that are properly run, maintained and supervised so that these teens are kept safe from harm and are properly looked after.

First Place created a housing assistance program for the foster youth they serve which is called the Supported Housing Program (SHP), and according to their own website it states that SHP provides safe, affordable housing to 86 youth and 32 children annually.

According to the First Place website, it also states; "The objective of SHP is to provide emancipated foster youth with access to safe, affordable housing, where they have the opportunity to develop and practice life skills to achieve long-term self-sufficiency. SHP participants live in two-bedroom apartments in the East Bay and receive a wide range of services and support."

If Effies House is an indication of what is really going on in the SHP (Supported Housing Program), it must be noted for the record that Effies House does not does have any two-bedroom apartments, and most of the units in the 21 unit building are studio apartments.

When business is slow, Julio Franceschi the owner of AAA Matress Co., and Home Furnishings in Oakland, does what he can to keep his furniture business afloat. For nearly a year, Franceschi has allowed one of his moving trucks and his furniture movers to assist in relocating the clients of First Place into and out of their housing units when theres not much happening at his furniture store.

During a discussion with two of Franceschi's furniture movers, including the brother of Julio Franceschi, one of them stated that the teens from First Place have a difficult time staying in their rental units for very long because they keep getting thrown out by the landlords. "Quite often the teenagers at First Place are thrown out of their housing by the landlords, and some of them have to be moved from one location to another, over and over again," the furniture mover said.

"Only around one in ten of the teenagers from First Place manage to fit into the locations they are placed into without some kind of serious problems arising that compells First Place to relocate their teens into another place to live. The problem is that the kids are given their housing at no cost to them and they don't have to work for it. They end up getting evicted over and over again, and we end up moving them into one housing unit after another."

"Most of the teens from First Place have children, and most of the young mothers seem to have only a few pots and pans for cooking. Often the moms don't even have a mattress to sleep on, and end up sleeping on the floor of their new residence. But, they all seem to have large boom boxes that get them into trouble when they move into their new housing," said the furniture mover.

The website at First Place paints a picture quite different from that which was described by the furniture movers who end up moving the teens around from one location to another.

According to the stats at the First Place website;
* Incarceration: First Place youth are 6 times less likely to be arrested or incarcerated
* Homelessness: First Place youth are 4 times less likely to be homeless
* Public Assistance Utilization: First Place youth are 3 times less likely to receive GA or TANF
* Employment: First Place youth are 50 percent more likely to be employed

The First Place website also states; "First Place is dedicated to providing long-term housing solutions--NOT temporary housing. To accomplish this, First Place provides a two-year rental subsidy to help youths pay their rent. Over time, the portion paid by First Place gradually reduces, and the portion paid by the youths increases. Once the rental subsidy has terminated, tenancy of the apartment officially transfers over to the youths, and they may remain living in the unit as long as they wish."

In violent plagued Oakland, violent crime is way up this year and these teens being served by First Place deserve the special attention needed to help these foster youth of Oakland find a safe and secure place to reside in that has supervision, such as a location that actually has a resident manager there at night and over the weekends.

Despite the best of intentions by the staff at First Place and EBALDC, the writer of this story hopes that this article illuminates a few issues that may assist both nonprofit organizations in doing what is legal and necessary, to help keep these troubled teens safe from harm and misery.

Lynda Carson may be reached at tenantsrule [at] yahoo.com