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August 27, 2008

Halfway house neighbors offer comments

By MaryAlice Meli

Some New Brighton neighbors of a halfway house for state prison parolees don’t worry anymore but others remain uncomfortable.

“We had some apprehensions about it,” said Tom Weyand, who lives near Penn Pavilion that serves about 100 male parolees. “But I don’t think we have an issue.”

After he and his wife, Pat, attend weekday morning Mass, he drives to work and she walks home at the same time Penn Pavilion residents are on their way to work.

She said they speak as they pass her, “say hello, but I haven’t had any problems.”

Her neighbor Angela Grossetti feels differently. She has five children ages 3 though 13. To her, Penn Pavilion’s presence is “not the most positive thing.”

Although she has never had a negative experience in eight years living there, Grossetti said her advice to Wayne Township residents is, “Don’t let it into your community.”

Wayne residents are fighting to stop Phoenix House, a proposed 200-bed, multimillion-dollar halfway house. The planned counseling and work release programs are similar to those at Penn Pavilion, aimed at helping offenders change destructive thinking and behavior patterns before they re-enter society.

Kacey Coulter, Grossetti’s neighbor, also has had no personal run-ins with inmates. The women don’t fear “walk-aways” either, knowing their goal is to leave the area.

What does concern them is the pick-up and drop-off pattern of some parolees.

The facility “has a circular drive in front,” Grossetti said. “They’re not supposed to get rides from others; it’s absolutely suspicious. I’m worried about their bringing their element in.”

Coulter said she has seen Penn residents being dropped off then walking to the entrance as though “they’d walked the whole way.”

Bill Palatucci, senior vice president of Community Education Centers that operates Penn Pavilion, said the facility has an advisory board of local officials and residents. The women said they did not know about the board.

Rich Foster, director of Gateway Rehabilitation Centers corrections division, said Gateway’s three area facilities also have advisory boards to inform the community about issues and get feedback.

He said Ella Jones, Braddock’s borough manager, is on the advisory board at Gateway/Braddock that recently expanded from 66 to 80 beds.

Jones said Braddock Avenue now is clean all the time, “often through the help of the parolees, cleaning up litter, weeding, boarding up vacant buildings and, sometimes, helping to demolish them.”

Jones said she has to sign forms after the men do the work as does the borough supervisor who has directed the work.

“I have nothing bad to say about Gateway; they keep tight controls.

“In the beginning, there were some concerns, but (Gateway) has worked well with us ... and (inmates) don’t cause any trouble. They help staff parades and community days.”

Foster said the Braddock community, through church and other groups, supports the men, especially at Christmas with donations of gifts and clothing.

Larry Morley, New Brighton borough manager, said Penn Pavilion residents do work that otherwise might not get done, such as grass cutting, weeding, picking up trash, painting fences — “anything a bunch of guys working together can do.”

He said there has been no rise in crime and no incidents in which people have been threatened by those at Penn Pavilion.

“The staff up there wouldn’t tolerate that,” Morley said.

Penn Pavilion, a former nursing home, was approved by borough council 17 years ago as a conditional use in the institutional zone under New Brighton’s zoning ordinance.

Wayne Township has no zoning ordinance.

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