Philadelphia officials are planning to move the city's facility for holding many troubled youth to West Philadelphia.
The city's Youth Study Centern, currently located at 20th Street and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, served to temporarily hold young people awaiting a court hearing or transfer a more permanent facility.
State Sen. Vincent Hughes (D-Phila.), said it is important for the center to move.
The current location is "antiquated," Hughes said. "They haven't been able to provide the services they wanted to for the young people down there. It's an outdated facility."
Hughes said that the social workers, psychologists and education specialists working at the facility assess the physical and mental health, social situations and family situations of the young people in the center.
On average, youths remain at the center for no longer than one week, Hughes added.
"The idea is not to incarcerate everybody -- especially not to incarcerate young people with older criminals," he said. "You don't want to send them to the adult prison."
City Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell, who represents an area of West Philadelphia that includes Penn, said that because the center would only take up five acres of the city-owned site -- just a fraction of what is available for use -- the entire lot must be mapped out before definite plans for the center can be made.
"Until ... we know whether we're dealing with commercial sites or home ownership, we're taking our time," she said. "Since whatever we do will last another 30 years, we want to make sure it's planned out well."
Department of Human Services Commissioner Cheryl Ransom-Garner said that the Market Street site is a good location because the 300 people who would be employed there will bring business to the surrounding West Philadelphia community.
However, Blackwell added that if West Philadelphia High School, poised to move, decides to relocate to a portion of the Market Street site, school officials might object to having the center so close. Representatives of the Philadelphia School District would not comment for this story.
"We have drawings of a fabulous, beautiful facility, but it will have a long-lasting effect on our community, and we want to make sure the future of the [site's location] will work," Blackwell said.
Funding for the center, Blackwell said, remains a question. "My colleagues are still not clear as to where the money comes from and how we will get it," she said.
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