Sex | State Funded Program Houses Teenage Girls With Juvenile Sex Offenders

A state-funded residential program in Kansas that teaches otherwise homeless teens "independence" and "self-sufficiency" was recently investigated for co-housing foster girls as young as 16 with juvenile criminal offenders, including registered sex offenders.

As part of Ozanam Pathways Program , "child in need of care" youth, including teenage girls, live with juvenile offenders, some of which have reached the age of 21. They live in 16 separate apartments in a complex on West University in Wichita, Kansas. The 5 girls and 10 boys also share a common courtyard space in the middle of the complex.

Wichita police Deputy Chief Tom Stolz said that local law enforcement was made aware of the current living arrangement, as well as further allegations of sexual assault in the West University apartment, by a former Ozanam's Pathway Program employee on July 18. These allegations follow three rape charges by teenage girls living at the same apartment in 2009 and 2010.

Stolz said,"A former employee at Ozanam's Pathway raised allegations that sex offenders living at the apartments on West University have too much contact with foster teens at the property."

But Ozanam's president, Doug Zimmerman, believes that the teenage girls who are currently housed at the West University apartments with juvenile sex offenders are in a "safe environment" at the apartment, which he said has 24-hour adult supervision. He referred to the former employee as an "upset employee who was laid off."

Zimmerman said, "We work closely with other Kansas agencies whether it's Justice Juvenile Authority or Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services. They have come in based on [the former employee's] complaints and they have taken a look at our program and has found no safety issues."

Stolz said that the investigation was a joint operation by the Wichita Police Department and Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services. He confirmed that they found no evidence of an "acute public safety matter," noting that "food was in the fridge," and "the premise was clean."

But he added, "That is a questionable policy that we would put those kids in same proximity in one another."

Rape Charges In Wichita

"There's consensual sex going on down there," Stolz said about the teenage girls and juvenile offenders, including "gang members, sex offenders and drug dealers," who live in Ozanam's West University apartment in Wichita.

There have also been three charges of rape, including one case in which allegations were made against a previous sex offender who was living in the same apartment.

In December 2009, July 2010 and October 2010, three girls who were living in the West University complex charged a 19, 18 and 17 year male old suspect respectively with rape, according to Stolz.

Detectives from the Wichita Police Department, as well as workers from the Social Rehabilitation Services, investigated all three rape charges. In all cases, the victims chose not to prosecute.

Stolz described the young girls, many of whom are chronic runaway cases, as "impressionable," often with "myriad complex social issues."