Escondido’s police chief on Wednesday joined a push to close a group foster home in the city, where a young man died of a drug overdose earlier this year, and a youth was severely burned, he said.
Chief Ed Varso said his department has responded to hundreds of calls for service over the last five years at the home run by the nonprofit Circle of Friends. He said he and his department have reached out to the home’s management, as well as to county and state social services officials, to improve conditions, but the efforts have gone “nowhere.”
“It really is upsetting to see a scenario where you have youth in Escondido who need help, we all recognize that they need help, and they are not getting what they need,” he said.
“We are trying to do everything on our end to keep things peaceful, to keep it to be a safe environment to get them the help they need — and you are not getting anything other than meetings and talk that something may happen, with no action,” he said.
Varso joined the Rev. Shane Harris at a news conference at Harris’ offices of the People’s Association of Justice Advocates in San Diego, where Harris repeated his call to close the home. Harris also wants the county Board of Supervisors to cut its funding to the home and to ask the state to pull the group’s license.
Harris said “the Circle of Friends management have proven they cannot provide the safe service to these youth” placed in their homes. He also said the county missed signs, and should have relocated the residents.
“You do exactly what you are taking the kids from their parents for — you protect them,” Harris said.
No one responded Wednesday to a voicemail message from the Union-Tribune left at a number associated with Circle of Friends. The president of the board did not respond to an email.
The county said it is no longer placing foster youth with Circle of Friends. A total of seven young people still remain in the two homes run by Circle of Friends — the Escondido site and a second home just outside Escondido city limits. Harris wants the county to move them out.
County spokeswoman Sarah Sweeney said the county doesn’t have licensing and oversight over the facilities— that falls to the state. But, she said, state officials and the home’s management have a plan to address concerns.
“The County continues to work with the State to monitor and support the facility to make sure that it is appropriate and safe for youth who are placed there,” Sweeney said in an email.
In May, 18-year-old Isaiah Michael Shane died of an accidental overdose in the Escondido home. In October, his mother, Amanda Shane, filed a wrongful death claim against the county. She has been working with Harris, and attended the news conference.
“I miss my son every single second of the day,” she said.
Last month, 10News broadcast an investigation highlighting the teen’s death and other concerns at the Circle of Friends’ home in Escondido, including a reported guilty plea from a staffer in a sexual abuse case.
On Wednesday, Varso said that calls to the home included an incident where one youth poured hand sanitizer on the chest of another and lit it on fire, causing severe burns.
In recent weeks, he said, officers responded to a call where a youth had smashed out all the front windows with a rock, and threw a rock at a youth, hitting him the face, and bit a staff member.
Over the years, officers have seized drugs, weapons and ammunition at the home, Varso said.
The county has contracted with Circle of Friends since November 2012, at a time when it was state-licensed as a group home. State law changed in 2017 to require group homes serving foster children to transition to short-term residential therapeutic programs.
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