Members of the Dayton City Commission say this oversaturation is burdening law enforcement and other resources and harms the quality of life in some neighborhoods. Commission members say they also worry about the safety and well-being of the youth in some of these facilities.
“What I know is collectively we are not serving our children well,” said Dayton City Commissioner Darryl Fairchild. “There is a lot of opportunity for us to care for our kids because some of these kids are living in conditions that ... are unacceptable and doesn’t do right by them.”
The Dayton City Commission unanimously approved a resolution on Wednesday that puts an immediate freeze on the acceptance and processing of applications for zoning, occupancy, conditional use and other approvals related to new group home facilities.
Ohio Department of Children & Youth data obtained by this newspaper earlier this year indicated that Montgomery County is home to about 80 foster youth group homes — more than one-third of the total statewide count.
Agency data indicated about 75 of those facilities were in Dayton. Dayton planning and zoning officials on Wednesday said 12 new proposed group home facilities have received zoning and other kinds of local approvals since the end of May.
Dayton Mayor Jeffrey Mims Jr. said city staff are working to find ways to prevent further concentration of these types of residential facilities in the Gem City.
He said Dayton does not have some of the regulations and prohibitions that other communities across the state have adopted.
The moratorium will help the city “pump the brakes” at a time when group homes are putting a big strain on resources that are meant for the entire city of nearly 138,000 people, Mims said.
Dayton police responded to nearly 3,000 calls to group homes last year. Most calls stem from youth going AWOL.
Kyrsten French, Dayton’s zoning administrator, said the city is exploring the possibility of creating a new requirement that group homes cannot be located within 1,000 feet of another facility.
The city also is looking at adopting minimum standards when it comes to the homes.
Commissioner Shenise Turner-Sloss said her neighborhood, Southern Dayton View, has five residential facilities on one block and three more around the corner from her home.
She said there has been an “overwhelming number” of issues with group homes in the community. She said she’s concerned about the living conditions in some of these facilities and their overconcentration.
“This is not an attack on the group homes,” she said. “But as members of this elected body ... we are charged with improving and enhancing the quality of life in the city of Dayton.”
On Wednesday, a couple of community members encouraged city leaders to work closely with group home operators to figure out solutions.
Will Peterson, with a Dayton area youth group home association, said the vulnerable youth in these homes deserve high-quality care and good opportunities for a brighter future. He said some youth have experienced incredible hardship and trauma, such as losing their parents to drug overdoses. Some youth were victims of severe physical or sexual abuse.
“The kids come to us broken, often by unimaginable trauma. Many of them have been deemed unadoptable because of the severity of their experiences and the behaviors that result,” he said. “These are the most marginalized of our society. ... But let me be clear, we do not see these children’s behaviors as who they are — we see them as cries for help, as evidence of the profound hurt that they carry.”
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