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There are no laws or policies requiring group homes for troubled or probationary teenagers to post a sign identifying its occupants so those houses disappear into neighborhoods. In front of those group homes, children walk to and from school, joggers jog, and neighbors carry about their daily lives, until attention is drawn to one like the incident that took place at the group home on Kooser Road.
Stephanie Zimmer, who lives on the next block from the home, said she knew the facility was there, but thought that they were there for offences no greater than vandalism.
The home was the location of an attack on Nov. 11, where three teenage girls who were residents of the home, attacked a counselor, stole some money and a van, picked up a fourth teen, also a resident, as they were fleeing the area. All the offenders were arrested within 24 hours of the incident.
"It's scary to know that [the teens] were capable of such violence," Zimmer said.
She says she now makes her 10-year-old son walk on the opposite side of the street from the group home when he comes home from school.
According to Andrew Roth, an official with California's Department of Social Services, group homes are not required to notify neighbors of their operation as long as it is a six-bed or fewer facility. Licensed operators are required to have a policy in place to handle neighbors' complaints, but they are not required to post signs or identify their purposes of operation.
California's Department of Social Services Website lists almost 1,700 group homes in the state, 44 in San Jose, and of those, 12 are operated by EE Residential Group Homes of Cupertino, the company that manages the Kooser home.
All of EE's facilities take exclusively youths on probation, Roth said. The facility on Kooser has been cited for a few minor complaints, including an exposed nail and mildew in the shower, he said. Other complaints against the company's group homes, which have ranged from lack of supervision to a personal rights violation, have occurred at their facilities on Hillsdale Avenue, Snell Avenue and Duvall Drive.
He said that the youths in those facilities are there for a variety of offenses and that they are not necessarily violent. Each child is sentenced and placed in homes on a case-by-case basis, he said.
There is a wide range of group homes—which are typically for minors—some providing temporary care and shelter for low-care-need clients, such as the Villa Rosanne home at 5535 Camden. Those facilities may provide 24-hour non-medical care for troubled children who may need social, psychological or behavioral assistance. Villa Rosanne takes both probationary youths and children who may have been placed there by social workers. Because of privacy concerns, Roth said he was unable to disclose who was now living at the home and why.
Other residential facilities in the area may be for adults who are developmentally or mentally disabled, Roth said. There are two such homes in Almaden Valley—the La Paz Residential Care Home on Franciscan Court, and Sandy's RCH-Redmond home on Redmond Ave.
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