Promise keepers

The once beleaguered Worcester Youth Center followed City Hall rules: center leaders moved from Main to Chandler street and have proved to be good neighbors. Why, then, won't the city support one of the few local organizations that tries to help kids without options?

by Joe O'Brien

June 1998 was a triumph of sorts for the Worcester Youth Center. Recently relocated from Main Street to Chandler Street, the drop-in center, which serves at-risk youth with health, social, and education-related programs, welcomed a parade of local officials. They were there to christen the bright, well-equipped new space where kids played games and politicians lingered, including City Manager Tom Hoover. It's "a new beginning, a new collaboration between the center and the city departments," Hoover said with a smile, echoing supporters who vowed the non-profit would be a good neighbor and, more important, a continued safe haven for kids without options.

It appeared the city had finally decided to help the beleaguered center, which had been the subject of numerous complaints from Main Street businesses and the target of police surveillance. Things had been so bad that a federal mediator was called in to keep the peace. Finally, the center's leaders believed, they would be able to serve kids without the threat of being shut down.

But the wheels of progress can turn slowly.

Just one year after its move, the organization continues to provide kids with alternatives to hanging out on the streets. Yet it still waits for public funding and business support. This year, several of its grant proposals were rejected by the city, and few of the business leaders who pledged to volunteer and provide funds have followed through. And it comes at a time when more kids are walking through the doors looking for help.

As one discouraged center supporter says of last June's celebration, "They all showed up with all these promises, and then nothing happened."

To some youth workers this lack of real support speaks volumes about what the city actually wants the youth center and troubled youth to do -- namely, to go away.

DIRECTOR ADOLFO ARRASTIA sits in his simple office, mulling over one of his favorite parables.

His story, he explains, is about villagers who live on a river and continuously rescue drowning children who have fallen in farther upstream. For years, as a matter of course, these rescues proceeded, and some of the children were saved, but many died. Then, one day, the village's leader decided instead of waiting for the children to reach his shore, he would go upstream and stop the kids from falling in at all.

"I want to be the one to go up the river," Arrastia says. "But I am too busy pulling [out] the kids who already fell."

If you spend any time at the youth center, you quickly get a sense of the flood of problems that young people face. Teens constantly poke their heads into the office to ask for advice on employment to educational programs, while others simply want someone to whom they can talk.

Arrastia's manner is gentle and his dedication unwavered when it comes to dealing with kids; even when asked to talk about the city, he does his best to be diplomatic. But, clearly, you can tell he is frustrated.

"We just aren't doing enough for these kids and more needs to be done," Arrastia says with a mix of sorrow and anger.

What's recently been on Arrastia's mind is the late-June shooting in Sutton of a convenience store worker. Worcester kids have already been indicted on the crime. It's an example, he says, of how we all lose when we ignore troubled youth. "We are up in arms about this shooting, but the matter of the fact is that we don't provide enough programs for troubled teens.

"Who is really to blame?" he poses.

It was the temptations of drugs and teen pregnancy and the lack of youth programs that first prompted the center to open its doors five years ago.

Community activist Lynne Simonds shepherded years' worth of talks that led to the storefront operation started in 1994 at 530 Main Street, where it was almost immediately criticized by neighbors who complained about kids hanging out and harassing customers.

By 1996, the center's lease was not renewed, so the group looked -- albeit almost unsuccessfully -- for a new, more permanent location with little support from city officials.

But that all changed, at least for a time, after February 18, 1997. On that evening, police and teens confronted each other. After repeated visits there, police returned, used pepper spray, and then arrested Arrastia and two staffers.

The incident was front-page news and city and youth center leaders scrambled to respond to the crisis. Several city councilors called for a public hearing to discuss the center's role in the community. In response, City Manager Hoover formed a special committee of business and city officials to find a new location. The group first looked on Herman Street in Main South, then at the Boys Club on Ionic Avenue, and then across from the Worcester Area Chamber of Commerce. Ultimately, the center was offered the current site on Chandler Street.

PERHAPS NO ONE HAS DONE more for the youth center than board member Cathy Kahn-Recht, who has worked as both a volunteer and in her role as an outreach worker for UMASS/Memorial Hospital (which also funds the center). Kahn-Recht says that the new location "has been wonderful because the space is bigger and we have been able to serve more kids." Today, the center serves more than 100 kids a day through its programs, which are offered seven days a week. And unlike other youth programs, it is a place where kids can come to simply hang around. Despite limited staff, it offers a variety of services. For older teens, the center holds GED and computer classes. The center has also recently received a BankBoston grant to hire another staff member to work on job-readiness skills. Homework assistance and college-application training are also offered.

To deal with the influx of youth, the center has begun offering after-school homework tutors and an arts-and-crafts program for grade schoolers.

It now has a youth leadership group, called the Teen Action Group, that makes policy decisions, brings in speakers, and holds workshops on issues ranging from mediation training to pregnancy prevention. Leaders of this group are working to provide alternatives to joining gangs and to educate younger children through a peer-mentor program.

"We have, over the past five years, demonstrated very positive outcomes by reducing or decreasing teen pregnancies and teen violence," Kahn-Recht says, adding that other benefits are noticeable too. "We have saved the state thousands of dollars that would have been spent on welfare, health, and incarceration costs." Kahn-Recht has compiled extensive figures that, she says, show that the youth center's programs are working and deserve public investment.

And then there are the quality-of-life issues.

"We have helped improve this neighborhood by getting the drunks off the corner and by cleaning up the area around our building," she says.

The youth center also cleaned up a vacant lot behind the building; today that space is used for cookouts and outdoor activities.

Like Arrastia, Kahn-Recht is slow to criticize public officials for their lack of support, but she allows, "A lot more could be done." Funding would let the center begin to address root causes for teen troubles. Arrastia would like to have increased funding to run more educational programs, as well as hire additional staff to work with kids on an individual basis.

But it has yet to receive public funding. This year, the center applied for three different grants under the Community Block Grant Program (CDBG) to run job training and recreation efforts at the center; each was denied. Worcester's CDBG program coordinator, Anthony E. Miloski, cites funding limitations as the main culprit behind the grant rejections as the city has been forced to curb the number of new-program grants (as opposed to repeat grants). Yet, Miloski admits, several new programs were funded this year, including a $40,000 grant for the Black FBI (which, among other things, helps train minorities), and there was $20,000 for a job-training program for women. To some youth advocates it seems remarkable that at least some funding was not available, considering that this year the city received $5.75 million from the federal government in block grant money (designed to help poor and moderate-income residents and neighborhoods); the funds are ultimately doled out by city council.

This is perhaps what is most surprising, because at least publicly, many councilors have expressed support for the center since its move to Chandler Street. But, according to one councilor, when push came to shove there just wasn't enough support on the board.

But where councilors have approved the use of CDBG funds are on a number of infrastructure projects. (This year, for instance, $125,000 will be used to build a Webster Square fire station, $628,282 will fund local code inspection, and $1.15 million will be used to fund the administration of the city's Office of Planning and Community Development -- several city officials have also suggested that CDBG funds should be used in the Union Station project). Perhaps a bit of the stretch for the funds, considering the CDBG program was developed to help the poor.

While the city has been slow to help fund the center, Arrastia does say that since the move, relations have gotten better. Former school Superintendent James Garvey and Mayor Raymond Mariano worked together to have the school department provide GED classes on site. Members of the police department have also reached out to the center to improve communications with teens and officers; one officer, Bill Gardner, even volunteers now. Arrastia also says that since the move, city officials are more accessible to him and return his phone calls, which, he believes, is a step in the right direction. Kahn-Recht also praises the work of several members of the business community who have been highly supportive of the center, especially UMass-Memorial president Dr. Peter Levine who has been the center's biggest supporter. She also is grateful to local businessmen Allen Fletcher, Doug Cutler, and Phil Davis all of whom have been longtime supporters.

Yet both Arrastia and Kahn-Recht admit that the center's financial situation is very precarious. They receive almost all their funding from local foundations.

"It's tough when you are trying to instill in the lives of these kids a sense of stability when we are not financially stable ourselves," Arrastia concedes.

Both Arrastia and Kahn-Recht have only to look to Boston -- now a national model on how to help at-risk youth with alternatives to gangs and violence -- to see the potential. In Boston, for instance, trained officers collaborate with outreach workers and neighborhood centers to help troubled kids. And unlike many cities, Worcester doesn't offer a police athletic league or its equivalent. More could be done with the city's employment and training division at the youth center. And certainly the school department could devote more funds to the programs. Yet in the end, it comes down to the communities priorities. While Kahn-Recht and Arrastia believe that a small investment today will benefit the future, it remains to be seen if the city's leaders agree. As Arrastia reminds us as a society, we simply can't afford to ignore these young people. "As a community we reap what we sow, and if we don't pay attention to these kids today we all will suffer."

At presstime, the city agreed to fund a one-time $10,000 grant, which will be spent on a new computer system.