Prescott House, the last group home for juvenile offenders of its kind in Lancaster County, closed in July following negative state inspections.

Its future is uncertain.

The group home's owner, Sylvester "Casey" Jones, closed the facility voluntarily, but if he reopens it, the state would closely monitor its operations.

For more than four decades, Prescott House has served as many as 12 male delinquents at a time in a substantial brick building at South Shippen and Green streets.

The group home's reopening depends largely on whether Lancaster and other counties decide to resume sending juveniles to a facility that has suffered operational and financial difficulties for several years.

"I'm sad that Prescott House has fallen on some hard times and hope it can be resurrected and be stronger than ever," says David Mueller, director of the county's Office of Juvenile Probation.

Prescott House has worked closely with his office to meet the needs of residents over the years and has changed young people's lives, Mueller notes.

On the other hand, he explains, "We're just not totally secure ... they can stay open for the long haul."

Prescott House's teenage residents came from several central Pennsylvania counties. They were sentenced by the courts to stay at the group home for several months to a year for offenses ranging from theft and vandalism to drug use and firearms charges.

Juveniles at Prescott House, a former residence, were not "locked down" as they are at the county's Youth Intervention Center, a facility that holds juveniles for a short time until their final disposition is determined.

Group home residents attended classes at McCaskey High School and received job training. The primary goal was to develop skills and find jobs.

With closure of the group home, local officials have been sending juvenile offenders to a facility outside the county.

Factoring in the cost of travel for juveniles and probation officers, that can cost more than the $146.89 a day paid to house teenagers at Prescott House.

Over the past five years, the county has paid Prescott House nearly $1 million to house and treat dozens of juveniles. Annual amounts have varied from $323,000 spent in fiscal year 2006-07 to just over half that amount spent in fiscal 2010-11.

Mueller says county officials would like to keep payments for institutional juvenile treatment in the county. They also would prefer, for rehabilitative purposes, to keep children close to their families in their own communities.

But whether that happens is largely dependent on whether Jones decides to reopen Prescott House.

On Oct. 26, the state's Office of Children, Youth and Families issued Prescott House a provisional license to operate through next August.

Roseann Perry, director of that office, notes that reopening the group home "would be the same as starting up any program from scratch," including hiring new employees.

Mueller says Jones has told him he will be able to hire a full staff. Based on that claim, the county is in the process of establishing a new contract with Prescott House.

Jones refuses to discuss his plans with a reporter.

A former McCaskey High School administrator and interim member of the city school board, Jones has directed Prescott House since the 1980s.

In 2005, Jones and Kenneth Dupree purchased the group home for $135,000 from the Lancaster County Council of Churches, which had opened it in 1970. Dupree later left the operation.

Jones runs the group home as a business corporation under the name Jondu Inc. Although it is a for-profit business, Prescott House solicits charitable contributions of food, clothing and other items.

Jones, 65, also is a bail bondsman who owes the county nearly $500,000 in forfeited bail. He is repaying that bill at $9,000 a month.

The state's provisional license for Prescott House is a "warning to consumers and family members to know there are some issues going on at the facility," according to state Department of Public Welfare spokeswoman Anne Bale.

The state has not yet accepted Jones' plan of action, she says, and is waiting to see what happens. The operation would be reassessed six months after it reopens.

Annual and unannounced inspections conducted by the Office of Children, Youth and Families have found multiple deficiencies at Prescott House since at least the summer of 2009. (That office is in the Department of Public Welfare.)

On July 28, 2009, state inspectors documented deficient staff training and inadequate treatment of clients in 18 categories. They also found holes in walls and a rusted bathroom vent.

On June 1, 2010, inspectors again found multiple violations of state regulations, including inadequate staff training, incomplete client records, exposed wiring and a missing outlet cover.

"At this point in time they struggle with keeping their residential census up and maintaining full-time employment for the staff," the inspectors noted. "Their attention to details could be improved."

On Nov. 5, 2010, a routine inspection found multiple violations of state regulations, all related to tardy completion of health examinations of incoming residents.

On April 5, inspectors, responding to a complaint, made an unannounced visit and found dirt and trash on residents' floors and water damage to several ceilings.

Inspectors also found exposed wiring, a urine-stained toilet seat and a dirty, rusted exhaust fan.

"While there was food in the facility, it did not appear to be enough for six clients," the report noted. "The staff on duty did not have a key to the freezer to access food."

On June 30, inspectors conducting the annual licensing review found 20 violations of state regulations regarding employees and residents, as well as a missing basement heater cover.

Jones then closed the building and dismissed the last three members of the professional staff.

When the group home sheltered 12 residents, it employed seven full-time professionals and several other workers, including a cook, according to a former employee who does not wish to be named.

But in March, when several employees sent an unsigned letter protesting conditions at the group home to the state Office of Children, Youth and Families and the Lancaster County Children and Youth Agency, only five full-time professionals were still working at Prescott House, the former employee says.

The employees complained that they always were paid late.

They said residents were not receiving well-balanced meals or sufficient food, and that the food was prepared by a cook under "unsanitary conditions."

Further, they said the program increasingly was producing "negative outcomes" for residents.

The employees said the group home's program had been successful in previous years, but more recently, under Jones' ownership, was "doomed for failure."

Perry, the state official, says the number of state citations that Jones has received is high but not unique.

"Certainly we have seen documentation of training missing or unacceptable conditions within the actual physical site in other places," she says.

But she adds that there also are group homes "where there are no irregular items noted."

Gary Horning, chief housing inspector for Lancaster city, says his bureau over the past several years has required Prescott House to upgrade electrical receptacles and clean up excessive amounts of trash.

But the number of complaints for that type of facility, he adds, are "less than average. It's probably better than a fraternity house."

While both the city and state assess the physical plant, and the state monitors employee and resident records, neither considers the solvency of the business.

As the number of residents at the home has declined, so have revenues.

"The need for out-of-home placement in Pennsylvania has decreased over the past few years," Perry says. "That certainly is a contributing factor."

It's a challenge to operate any business these days, she notes. Operating a business with fewer "customers" is an additional burden.

Lancaster County Children and Youth has not sent any clients to Prescott House for at least five years, according to James Laughman, the county's human service director.

The county's Office of Juvenile Probation, the primary county agency that has referred clients to Prescott House, had three teenagers there until last spring.

They completed their correction programs before the facility closed, according to Mueller.

Juvenile Probation stopped sending new teens to Prescott House "when we started receiving complaints that staff members had made to the Office of Children, Youth and Families," Mueller explains.

But concerns about the group home have been long-standing, he adds.

"We haven't this past 10 years been completely enamored of the program," he says. "But every time we met with Prescott House we got a positive response, and changes were made."

While he hopes the group home can reopen and Lancaster can send clients there, Mueller observes, "it's expensive to run a program like this. Unless you have a certain number of kids in it, you won't break even."

Lancaster was sending two or three boys at a time, so Prescott House had to depend on surrounding counties to help fill other beds.

The former Prescott House employee says that only Lancaster and Chester counties were sending children in the months before the facility closed. He says York, Berks and Dauphin counties had stopped using the program.

jbrubaker@lnpnews.com