In the 2022 budget, Governor Cuomo has proposed closing Red Hook Residential Center, along with three other juvenile facilities, to help cover the budget shortfall from COVID-19. From an actuarial standpoint, it is hard to believe the small amount that the state would save would be worth the ramifications. The staff will have to be reassigned to other state placements, thereby saving the state nothing on salaries, and the properties will still be maintained but left vacant. From a human standpoint, it is far worse.
Red Hook is semi-officially designated as the facility that protects and cares for the more vulnerable children in New York’s juvenile justice system. It has a proven track record of helping intellectually and emotionally disabled residents gain the skills needed to leave the system for good and move toward an independent, law-abiding life. As the only non secure facility in the system, it fills an essential niche, educating and providing services for those transitioning back into the community or other placements. Without a non secure, the system is dangerously stratified.
Perhaps most importantly, RHRC is acknowledged as the facility that best works with LGBTQIA residents. On the official website for Red Hook Residential, it reads, “In addition to a focus on trauma-informed care, RHRC is also known throughout the state for its ability to work effectively with gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth.” Other facilities have not shown this efficacy in caring for this population. If RHRC is no longer open, this population will be shunted into inappropriate, high-security placements for their infractions where they will most likely be unable to treat them with the dignity they deserve. Without Red Hook, OCFS will become another system that could not help these children when they desperately needed it.
The Office of Children and Family Services is not in the business of housing children. RHRC cares for them, sometimes becoming the place where they come across the first adults who can meet the needs of these children. I work there and find that we are often the final opportunity for these children to have lives of purpose. Red Hook Residential Center is trying to save the lives of these gay and transgender students who have never felt at home or welcome anywhere else, those who blossom in their months at this facility.
According to The Trevor Project, these children are three times more likely than their heterosexual peers to seriously contemplate suicide and almost five times as likely to attempt it. In my years here, I have taught residents who turned to sex work and violent crime to try to cope with parents who abandoned them for their gender or sexuality. I have listened as a trans girl wept, knowing that she would have to leave Red Hook for an uncertain future. She could become suicidal as she came near to killing herself before. We must demonstrate compassion for the needs of these students who are on this precipice. We cannot allow this budget to cause them to be abandoned yet again, not with lives on the line.
OCFS needs Red Hook Residential Center open to serve the most vulnerable adjudicated children. The negligible cost in the budget cannot be worth the lives and futures of these children.
Please help by taking the actions listed below.
Thank you,
ThommCSEA has a petition to try to save the facility athttps://actionnetwork.org/letters/save-red-hook-residential-center
You can also contact Governor Cuomo directly athttps://www.governor.ny.gov/content/governor-contact-form
This work is licensed under a 