The Clio messenger. (Clio, Mich.) 1907-current, 1916-03-31

them and we have to go and get the
whole family and Take them down to
the County Infirmary and keep them
there until we can find them homes or
send them to State Public School at
Coldwater.
There is no need of sending normal
children to the State Public School, we
can find them homes here. A sub
normal child may have to be sent to
state institution to be cared for, and it
is the duty of the state to take care of
this class of children. No one of us
wants to take a sub-normal child into
our home.
We should have a detention home
where we can keep these dependents
and neglected children long enough to
determine their traits of character and
whether they would be the proper chill
dren to place into our homes.
We have greater demand for chill
dren to place into homes than we have
children to supply the demand. What
one of us looking for child to take
into our home would not rather go to
clean Detention Home presided over by
noble woman as matron, where we
could see these children. and talk with
the matron about them, than go to the
County House or State Public School to
select one.
They have no conveniences for TAX
ing care of these children at the County
House, no place to treat them if sick,
no means of preventing them from es-
Gaping. Boys are put in there'at night
and are gone the next morning, making
the county lots of trouble and expense
in finding them. Three girls last sum-
mer broke out, and we found one of
them near Clio dressed in boys cloth
ing. The board of supervisors at their
January meeting unanimously voted to
submit to the people the proposition of
raising ten thousand dollars to build
this Home. The county of Genesee
owns seventeen acres of land on South
Saginaw Street, City of Flint, just in
side the city limits, where we propose
to build this Juvenile Home. 1t is an
ideal place for such Home. We have
the advantages of water, sewer, lights,
sidewalks, pavements and all the land
we need.
We propose to build modern Home
here that will take care of fifteen or
twenty children, and as the county
grows, and the demand becomes great
er, we can add to it if necessary.
One hundred and twenty-five children
passed through the juvenile court last
year. Some sixty of these had to be
sent to the County House for deten-
tion. More would have been sent there
if they had had any place to keep them.
AS the city and county grows, the work
of the juvenile court will increase.
We want home for these juveniles
where they can be properly cared for,
while waiting to have their cases dis
| posed of in juvenile court.
Other counties have these Homes,
why not have one in Genesee County?
Wayne County is just completing a
Juvenile Home that cost $65, 900. 90.
Kalamazoo has one that cost $12, 000 90.
Bay County has enc that cost about
$12, 10000.
We are asking to raise ten thousand
dollars to build one in Genesee County.
The assessed valuation of Genesee
County is about sixty-eight million dol
lars. To raise ten thousand dollars it
would cost less than fifteen cents on a
thousand dollar valuation.
Are we not willing to pay this small
amount to build Home where these
unfortunate children can be properly
cared for?i
Let everyone interested in the well
fare of children vote in favor of this
proposition, and when the Home is
built we will all be proud of it.
Colonel o. Swayze,
Judge of Probate.