I wasn’t going to write this letter, but after reading the letters in defense of FamiliesFirst, I felt I had no choice.

Several years ago, before FamiliesFirst had built its facility on Fifth Street, I had the misfortune to be a neighbor of one of its group homes in Davis. I found the children there to be out of control and the staff immature and poorly trained.

Children throwing rocks at my house and throwing knives over the fence were just two of the numerous problems I suffered through.

The staff was uniformly rude and unresponsive to proven transgressions by their wards. The new rules that some have blamed for the recent problems were not in effect then, yet I suspect many of the problems reported now were also an issue then. For instance, I often saw unsupervised children in the neighborhood, harassing cars and pedestrians. My only surprise over the recent problems is not that they occurred, but that there were so many more serious problems and crimes that have been identified.

There may have been a time in the distant past when FamiliesFirst performed service to its clients, but those days have been gone for years.

The problems I suffered through did not end until they closed the group home next to me. I suspect that is also the solution in this case.

John Minker
Davis

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