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New group home open house is today
YOUNGSTOWN
An open house will take place from noon to 5 p.m. today at a new 10-bed group home for abused, neglected or dependent girls between age 10 and 17 on the city’s East Side.
A dedication ceremony will be at 1 p.m. for the home, named Artis’ Tender Love and Care Inc., which is located at 2003 McGuffey Road and owned by Artis Gillam Sr., a former first ward city councilman.
The home can begin housing girls referred there by county juvenile courts and children services boards as soon as it obtains a group home license from the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.
“The center will provide an alternative family setting,” said Gillam, who will be the home’s owner and chief executive officer.
The home’s administrator is Louis Wainwright, a licensed social worker who retired four years ago from the Mahoning County Children Services Board staff as director of placement services after 30 years with the child welfare agency.
He is now residential treatment director at the Belmont Pines child and adolescent psychiatric hospital in Liberty.
Wainwright said the McGuffey Road group home expects to apply for the license next week.
ODJFS must inspect the premises before it can issue the license.
Wainwright said obtaining the license likely will take about two months.
“Our ultimate goal is to develop an environment of stability for young women by implementing supportive care and training programs, which, upon completion, will allow each client to discover her own self-worth and be able to go into the community and live a responsible, productive life,” Gillam wrote in a letter to agencies that might refer girls to the home.
Residents could stay in the home for periods ranging from six months to four years, Gillam said.
“When they leave us, they will be able to go back into the community with some confidence in themselves,” Gillam said.
The group home is in the former office of the construction business bearing Gillam’s name, which was damaged by fire three years ago.
Gillam said he paid out of his own funds to repair the fire damage to his building and has relocated the construction business to his residence.
The Finance Fund of Columbus provided a $241,348 loan to renovate and expand the McGuffey Road structure into a group home that will initially employ 10 people.
“The behavioral and mental health services he’s looking to provide fit our mission,” said Tara Campbell, the fund’s vice president of lending. “There’ll be some counseling and support for these troubled youth,” she added.
The Finance Fund website says the fund, originally known as the Ohio Community Development Finance Fund, was founded in 1987 as a nonprofit organization “to connect underserved communities with public and private sources of capital.”
Gillam said he will operate the group home as a for-profit business and needs to receive $180 to $200 per resident per day from agencies placing residents there to break even.
The home will be staffed round- the-clock, and all applicants for staff positions will undergo a criminal background check, Gillam said.
“This is going to be state of the art, and I want it run right,” Gillam concluded.