Grant opens hearts for foster children
Six years after the doors closed for good, the vacant hospital at 404 Kaufman in Linden is finally getting a facelift. A joint venture of Open Hearts Children and Family Services and Calabri Health LLC will result in a residential facility for foster care children, as well as a boost to the town economic base.
“Open Hearts has facilities in the DFW area, and Calabri has facilities in the Northwest Louisiana area. they’re the primary operating partners that are going in together on this,” said Christophe Trahan, director of Linden Economic Development Corporation. “Calabri purchased the hospital from Christus Health who acquired it when they bought Good Shepherd Medical Systems in 2014.”
The facility will be the only one of it’s kind in Public Health Services Region 4, which encompasses the following counties: Anderson, Bowie, Camp, Cass, Cherokee, Delta, Franklin, Gregg, Harrison, Henderson, Hopkins, Lamar, Marion, Morris, Panola, Rains, Red River, Rusk, Smith, Titus, Upshur, Van Zandt, and Wood.
According to the Texas Department of Family Services website, data for the month of December 2020 shows there were 2039 children placed in the foster system from Region 4 alone. Of those, 640 were placed outside of the region. Cass County alone has nine of 12 foster children placed outside of the region. The total of foster children in the state was 15,819 for the month of December.
“As it stands right now, when a child goes into the protective services foster care system in Northeast Texas, if it’s an emergency placement in the middle of the night, they stay on a cot at the CPS office in Texarkana, or wherever the closest CPS office is. And then they’re bussed about six to nine hours to the closest facility that can take them,” said Trahan. “This was the description I was given before the pandemic. I really couldn’t even tell you what it looks like now – worse I imagine.”
The DFPS recognizes the following categories of child placement: DFPS Foster Homes, Private and Independent Homes, GRO: Child Care Services Only, Residential Treatment, Emergency Shelter Services, Other Foster Care, Kinship, Adoptive Home, Independent Living, and Other Subcare. The LEDC seven-person board of directors are: Carla Roadcap, President; Richard Bowden, Kyle Morgan, John Rountree, Larry Wells, Dave Stewart and Frank Lanier. The board and Director Trahan have developed an economic incentive package to help Open Hearts and Calabri turn the vacant hospital into a residential treatment facility.
“Our economic agreement with Open Hearts is a Chapter 380 grant agreement, in which we’ll be giving them $25,000.00 in exchange for a certain level of job creation and a certain level of capital investment in their facility,” explained Trahan. “It will be a facility for long-term placement, short-term placement and emergency placement when needed, with a primary focus on long-term.”
On January 11th, Anthony Montgomery and Dr. Cassandra Montgomery, Director of Calibri Health, LLC and Gayun Matthews, Executive Director, Open Hearts Children and Family Services traveled to Linden to meet with Trahan. At that time he presented both entities with checks for $12,500.00 each as fulfillment of that agreement.
The first demographic of foster child that they will focus on will be long-term care of teenage boys because they are the group that is most likely to age out rather than be adopted out. That will be the first of three stages of opening.
“Before Good Shepherd closed the hospital in 2014, they invested a couple of million dollars into a particular wing of the hospital and that will be the first one that gets opened,” Trahan said. “I believe they anticipate the wing will be able to house between 30 and 40 occupants.”
The next two phases will bring the facility up to full capacity over three years with multiple levels of care being serviced. When complete, the building will house 60-80 children at full capacity with about 25 created jobs.
The Linden facility will be able to keep children who need to go into the system for any particular reason closer to the communities they are familiar with. It will also give them a better opportunity of being able to leave the system rather than age out since they will be closer to potential family members, guardians or caregivers.
Children placed in Linden will be those placed in foster care through no fault of their own - their parents may be deceased, incarcerated, declared unfit or negligent. It will not be a high-risk facility with walls or fences built around it, although it will have a security system.
The first residents will arrive as soon as the building is ready for them, which could be only a few months away.
There will be postings on the LEDC website for the jobs created there, but it’s not only an economic development undertaking, but a community development project as well.
“This facility will be home for those children, and Linden will be their community and they will partake of the library and will be attending our schools; they’ll be attending our churches,“ said Trahan. “These are kids who will grow up here, ideally they will build social capital in our community. They will build roots.”
“This is where they will most likely look for jobs. They will be able to hold jobs when they’re of working age if they’re still living in the facility.”