Boys Town Buys 76-Acre Canyon Site for Campus

Boys Town no longer resembles the lowly orphanage immortalized in the 1938 film classic. In fact, Father Flanagan might not recognize it today.

The barracks-style dormitories have been replaced with $300,000 homes, where both boys and girls are supervised by married couples rather than priests. And scaled-down versions of the Nebraska-based Boys Town are popping up all over the country--the latest one planned for Orange County.

Officials of the nationally known program for abused or delinquent children, founded in 1917 by Father Edward Flanagan, have purchased the option on 76 acres of vacant land in rural Trabuco Canyon. Over the next 4 years, they plan to build three to five homes to accommodate up to six children each. An additional home would be built for Boys Town staff.

$3.2-Million Project

“We’re planning to build a mini-campus in Southern California,” said Father Val J. Peter, Boys Town executive director.

The $3.2-million project, the first Boys Town to be built in California, is part of the organization’s national expansion program, which began 4 years ago. Boys Towns have been built in Orlando and Tallahassee, Fla., and San Antonio, Tex.

“Boys Town reached a decision not only to work with children in our main camp in Omaha, but to work in different places in the country where people who need care can receive it close to their own geographical home,” said Don Weber, director of the expansion project, called Boys Town USA.

“In high-growth areas . . . the system just doesn’t keep up and there is a need for more services. We talked with leaders of Orange County social services and the Orange County probation office, and they say there is an increasing need here.”

Many of the children who come to Boys Town are emotionally troubled or tough street youths. They range from 8 to 18 years of age, but most are 13 to 15. Some have been severely abused or neglected; others are going through drug rehabilitation programs or have had minor brushes with the law, Weber said.

Boys Town does not accept children who have committed violent crimes or may be a threat to others, officials said. More than 16,000 children have been residents of Boys Town over the years, officials said.

“When a youth comes to us, they have very low self-esteem. We are trying to create ways in which a child can get better. We are not a place of care alone, we are a place of treatment. We aim to change the behavior of children, their social behavior,” Peter said.

Some children will come from Los Angeles and surrounding areas, but most will be from Orange County, Weber said. The children will attend public schools and try to integrate into the community.

Probation officials and officials of the county’s Children’s Services Department, which in any given month may have up to 50 children on a waiting list for group home placement, said they welcome Boys Town to the area. But residents who live near the site, west of Rose Canyon Road and east of Mountain View Road, have mixed reactions.

“We’ve heard concerns about the security issue, (but) there are others who welcome the low density,” said Ray Chandos of the Rural Canyons Conservation Fund, a group of Trabuco Canyon residents. “Developers had been looking at putting 27 residential units on that property, which people didn’t like too much.”

Chandos said Boys Town officials have met with residents to discuss the project, but his group will not take a stand on it until Boys Town formally applies to the County Environmental Management Agency for permission to build. So far, Boys Town has submitted only a map of how the site would be divided, which the agency is reviewing.

Rosa Musseden, who lives nearby on Trabuco Oaks Drive, pointed out that the Joplin Youth Center, run by the Orange County Probation Department, is also located in the area. One group home, she said, is enough.

“It’s too close to the other one and there will be too many kids. Some other neighborhood should have to share; it’s not fair to put them all together,” Musseden said.

But Connie Presley said she would be pleased to see low-density development on the property, which borders 4 acres of her land.

“We would rather have more open space than homes, but if anyone had to buy (the land), I’d rather it be Boys Town than a developer,” Presley said.

Weber said Boys Town would use only 30 of the 76 acres, 15 for the houses and another 15 for a swimming pool, basketball court, play area, equestrian trails and open space. Initially, only three 3,800-square-foot houses would be built. Others might be built within the next 3 years, depending on the need, Weber said.

The other 46 acres would remain undeveloped, he said. Boys Town would purchase the entire 76-acre site for $21,000 an acre.

The property is zoned for residential development, which would allow for community group homes, said Chuck Shoemaker, chief of site planning for the Environmental Management Agency. If Boys Town submits a plan for six homes with no more than six children each, the project would not have to go before the Orange County Planning Commission, he said. The county subdivision committee, however, must hold at least one public hearing before issuing the building permits.

Boys Town is accustomed to apprehension from residents, Weber said. But, he said, Boys Town officials share their desire to maintain a low-density community.

The Boys Town campus “would be like a little cul-de-sac subdivision, like going into a neighborhood of nice homes,” he said. There are no plans to build another village like the main campus near Omaha, which has its own post office, fire station and police force.

The capital cost of the project, plus $100,000 a year in operating costs, would come entirely from Boys Town’s $60-million operating budget, Weber said. Only families able to pay would be charged for the program.

Boys Town, which receives about $6 million a year in donations and an additional $11 million annually in gifts, has a Foundation Fund with investments totaling more than $300 million.

In 1972, Boys Town was involved in a scandal when the Omaha Sun Newspapers disclosed that the institution had secretly piled up a $200-million nest egg while continuing to collect $26 million a year in donations. The newspaper reported that the wealth was far more than the institution knew how to use and, at the same time, Boys Town’s population was dwindling.

Officials responded by bringing in a new administration, updating its main campus and expanding programs.