Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!enterpoop.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.metro From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Youth initiative lauded by mayor despite critics Date: Mon, 23 Nov 92 15:07:21 EST Message-ID: Lines: 120 \SE B;METROPOLITAN \HD Youth initiative lauded by mayor despite critics \BY Darryl Lynette Figueroa \CR THE WASHINGTON TIMES D.C. Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly yesterday marked the first year of her Youth and Crime Initiative by vowing to press ahead with the program, which observers say has posted rather modest gains while struggling to overcome funding and other problems. "If anybody tries to stop us, we will close ranks and tell them 'No way.' " the mayor said at yesterday's anniversary ceremony, held at the First Baptist Church on Seventh Street in Northwest. Mrs. Kelly said after the ceremony that she was prepared to take money from other city programs to pay for her youth initiative. "We will rob Peter to pay Paul," Mrs. Kelly said, "It's the only answer." To date, there has been no public disclosure of precisely how much of the $30 million planned for the program has been spent, exactly how many people it has helped or whether it has improved coordination among city youth services as it proposed to do, said D.C. Council members. "It's not clear how much money they have spent or how much money they intend to spend," said council member William Lightfoot. "There are no clear measures by which to determine the success or failure of the initiative." The multifaceted plan is designed to offer drug treatment, more recreational programs, more educational programs for poor and incarcerated youth, expanded health services for new mothers and infants, more immunizations for the city's children and social work help in keeping troubled families together. So far, the city's immunization rate has risen from less than 50 percent before the program to about 60 percent, Mrs. Kelly said. Supporters say the family preservation component of the plan has kept 132 children from going into the city's already overloaded foster care system. "We see the success here today," Mrs. Kelly said of the three children and two parents who spoke at the ceremony in support of initiative programs. "These programs are working." Support from council members was more cautious. "In theory it's a good plan, although we have not seen the whole program on paper," said Mr. Lightfoot, who sits on the committee that has oversight responsibility for the initiative. "But it's been a very slow start . . . and clearly there've been problems implementing the plan." Those problems came when first the council and then Congress cut the program from the city's budget, while its first executive director, David Temple, was replaced by former police chief Isaac Fulwood Jr. after six months on the job. The council reversed its cuts when the Kelly administration agreed to provide further details. "I still have not yet seen a defined program," council Chairman John Wilson said. "It's pieces of different things, and so I don't know enough about it to say if it's good or bad." Officials had been tapping money set aside for other programs to fund various aspects of the initiative since it started, according to a council oversight hearing held in June. About $4 million slated for adult drug abuse treatment, for example, was shifted to youth drug abuse programs. Another oversight hearing on the initiative scheduled for September was canceled. "They were not quite ready to do another," Mr. Lightfoot said. At the time of the earlier hearing, some legislators were shocked at the reprogramming of budgeted money, noting the council should have been informed. At the same time, some legislators and some youth advocates expressed cautious satisfaction with the progress of the initiative. In September, when Congress cut a $26 million payment to the city that had been designated for the youth initiative, Mrs. Kelly again told Ellen O'Connor, deputy mayor for finance, to "take it" from other programs, the mayor said. But as far as Lonita Eddy, a beneficiary of one of the programs, is concerned, every penny has been well spent. Ms. Eddy, of Northeast, said the family preservation component of the initiative was the only thing that kept her from sending her teen-age daughter into foster care when the now 16-year-old girl became pregnant a second time. "I was so mad I wouldn't talk to her," Ms. Eddy said. "I left the house. I couldn't stand looking at her." As part of the initiative's family preservation program, the city sent in Gwendolyn Inman, a social worker who made herself available to the family 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Now Lonita Eddy takes care of Monique's first child, her grandmother will adopt the baby Monique is carrying now, the mother and daughter have renewed their relationship and the teen-ager swears she won't become pregnant again. "Without the program, I don't know where we'd be, honestly," said Ms. Eddy. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM