Fellowship of Lights, a nonprofit organization that has sheltered homeless and runaway teenagers for more than 30 years, has shut down one of its two Baltimore facilities, saying it can't properly care for the few deeply troubled boys being sent its way.
The problems became severe starting in July, when referrals from the Baltimore Department of Social Services declined and began to include more teenage boys with mental illnesses and behavior problems, said Ross Pologe, executive director of Fellowship of Lights.
The shelters for boys and girls weren't intended to handle violent teenagers or any with a long history of drug abuse. Fellowship of Lights hopes to reopen its nine-bed boys shelter, a rowhouse called Harris House in midtown Baltimore, after retooling its offerings to care for troubled teenagers, he said.
But Pologe said his group had to close the house in the meantime because financial losses had risen to $50,000. The organization laid off seven youth workers and a part-time cook and sent the remaining boys to other facilities.
Fellowship of Lights is not alone, according to the Maryland Association of Resources for Families and Youth. Many other shelters around the state that take care of children of all ages have seen a precipitous decline in the number of referrals from social services departments.
"None of them have maintained an occupancy level that allows them to be viable," said James McComb, the association's director, noting that youth shelters in Calvert and Montgomery counties closed last year.
The children who had been referred to shelters typically were those the state takes away from their families because of neglect or abuse. They also included those who had been placed in foster care but hadn't adapted well. In all those cases, the children need a temporary home, and the state pays a fee to providers to cover their care.
"I have no idea where the state is sheltering kids," said McComb.
What is clear, McComb and Pologe said, is that there seems to be a lack of communication among the institutions and the government agencies that place children with them.
The Maryland Department of Human Resources oversees the local departments of social services. Asked about the declining referrals, Elyn Jones, a spokesman for the department, said: "My thinking is that we have been better able to provide more intensive services that are needed."
If so, McComb said, the state has not informed the shelters of the change.
