‘We Don’t Need Them Here’ : Pennsylvania Town Pulls In Welcome Mat for AIDS-Afflicted Infants

ESTELLA, Pa. —  John Edkin stood on the front porch of the home he built with his own hands, jabbing his finger in the air and complaining angrily about a farmhouse just 1,000 yards away that has been proposed as a shelter for infants with AIDS.

“Hey, it’s right in my back yard!” exclaimed the 67-year-old retired woodsman. “I feel that we don’t need them here. Sullivan County is a nice clean county and we’d like to keep it that way.”

Like Edkin, many of the 630 residents of Elkland Township, of which Estella is a part, oppose the idea of the home, which would care for up to six Philadelphia-area children ages 2 and under until foster homes can be found.

‘Burdensome Review’

Elkland Township residents and officials deny discrimination charges filed by the home’s operators, Best Nest Inc. of Abington, Pa. In its complaint with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, Best Nest accused the town of trying to block the home by amending the building code and a toxic waste ordinance and by “excessive and burdensome review.”

Edkin says his biggest concern is property values in Estella, a central Pennsylvania town so small that it has more deer than people and includes only a dozen homes, two churches, a country store, a nursing home and the cabins that seasonal residents use for hunting and weekend getaways. It is about 200 miles from Philadelphia.

“I talked to a real estate agent after this thing first come in,” Edkin said. “And I said to him, ‘If I told you today I’d take $30,000 for my home, what would you say to me?’ He said, ‘I’d tell you I’d give you 15.’ The value of property is gone right down.”

The 12-bedroom farmhouse, hidden at the top of a mile-long dirt road in this farming and lumbering region, was once a home for emotionally disturbed teen-agers. It now has a temporary license to house three infants. A 3-month old girl lives there now with her foster mother.

To take in more than three young children would require costly renovations to comply with additional state and township regulations. Township supervisors amended the building code to place any group home whose income is more than $15,000 a year into a tougher fire safety classification, mandating sprinkler systems, fire walls, emergency lighting and fire escapes.

The 100-year-old house has none of these, and Pennsylvania officials and Scott Eldredge, the social worker who directs Best Nest, agree that such renovations might be prohibitive.

Townspeople and officials suggested Best Nest is a family venture out to make a buck through the $197 to $227 a day it would receive in government funds for each child and through a tax-exemption it sought as a nonprofit corporation. The exemption was denied, according to Kenneth Levitzky, the county solicitor, after Best Nest failed to prove eligibility with financial data.

“I haven’t been paid a dime for what I’ve done,” Eldredge said. “I grew up in a home where there was emphasis on helping other people.”

Residents say they are being painted as the bad guys when their concern is the children’s safety. The nearest hospital is an hour away, they note.

Residents Want Information

Clinics and doctors, however, are available nearby, and state officials say it has not been clearly demonstrated that medical care would be a problem.

The question of the children’s race arose at a town meeting, but Betty Reibson, a dairy farmer and secretary-treasurer of Elkland Township, said residents simply wanted all the information they could get.

“We’re not trying to be discriminatory,” she said. “We’ve never said we don’t want this type of home. We’re saying we want regulations. We feel these children have the right to have the best facility that would provide them the care and protection they need.”

But Edkin’s wife, Eleanor, says she has heard town residents “growl about the black people.”

No blacks live in the township except for a 1-year-old boy--tested positive for AIDS--who is the foster child of Eldredge’s brother, Malcolm, and his wife, Kim.

They live next door to the proposed group home and would run it if it opens. The Eldredge brothers’ parents and grandparents live along the same road on the other side of the proposed shelter.

Home for Troubled Teens

Malcolm and Kim previously ran the home for troubled teen-agers. Last year, Best Nest bought it for $27,000 from Berachah Farm, a nonprofit Christian group. The home was closed for financial reasons and because of problems in setting up schooling.

Commenting on the farmhouse’s distance from Philadelphia, where the children would come from, Scott Eldredge said the family had “looked for a home closer to Philadelphia and if we had had the financial backing to purchase a home in Philadelphia, we would have done that.”

“We have used our own personal funds to purchase this home,” he said. “Our goal was to buy a home already licensed as a group home because we knew there could be problems with discrimination against a home for children with AIDS.”

Of the township’s opposition, Malcolm Eldredge said: “I think it’s representative of a few loudmouthed people. There’s quite a few people that are very positive and say, ‘We agree with what you’re doing. We think it’s a good thing. We’re behind you.’ ”

Among those is Grace Frounfelker, a 68-year-old lay speaker in the United Methodist Church who was a member of the board of trustees of Berachah Farm.

“It is offering a Christian home and love to babies that were being left in hospitals,” Frounfelker said. “It is a ministry which the Lord Jesus upheld when he said let the children come to me and do not hold them back for such is the kingdom of God.”