Jamie Beletz and Mel Curtiss probably saved Gateways for Youth and Families from failure.

Friends and critics alike agree that changes the couple implemented in the past few years streamlined the organization, shored up its finances and likely kept it from folding after more than a century of helping children and young adults.

But it’s not clear how much Gateways is accomplishing.

Curtiss, the top administrator, wouldn’t provide details about Gateways’ programs, including how much it spends on them and how many people they serve.

Public and Gateways documents and interviews with insiders and partner agencies point to an organization in search of money and a purpose.

Gateways still provides foster care placement and court-ordered parenting classes for divorcing couples. But it’s also pursued new programs that have little to do with its traditional mission of helping emotionally disturbed children and juvenile delinquents. It advertises everything from yoga and dance classes to Xbox tournaments.

Some of its attempts at new programs fell flat. In the last few years, Gateways made a failed bid to take over Tacoma’s Fourth of July Freedom Fair, although it had no history of event management. Its attempt to start an alternative education program led to a fallout with Bethel schools amid allegations that Beletz grabbed a student. Its promise to start a child-care center has yet to materialize.

Meanwhile, the group continues to raise money through its bingo hall and used-goods donation collections. It’s also seeking government grants and contracts and asking for public support by evoking the organization’s long legacy.

The charity’s foundation, formed to support the work of Gateways, has launched a capital campaign to build an equestrian center on its ranch property in Summit, between Tacoma and Puyallup.

Some former board members say it pains them to see what Gateways has become.

“It’s incredibly sad for me to think about what this agency has always been, and where it is now,” said Steve Downing, a Tacoma lawyer and former Gateways board member who has served multiple stints on the board and worked for Gateways since the 1970s.

LONG HISTORY

Gateways’ roots stretch back as far as the 1890s, when wives of prominent Tacomans founded the charity to care for orphans. By 1908, the predecessor of Gateways – the Children’s Industrial Home of Tacoma – housed children in a mansion in the Oakland-Madrona neighborhood. The home was known by the nickname “Home on the Hill.”

A related organization, the Jessie Dyslin Boys Ranch, was founded in Summit in the 1920s. It has operated independently and as part of Gateways. When it began, it provided a place for orphans to live after they aged out of the Home on the Hill. Later, it housed juvenile offenders for the state. In 1990, the ranch rejoined Gateways.

Until 2005, Gateways used the ranch to house juvenile offenders under a contract with the state Juvenile Rehabilitation Administration. Gateways was once Washington’s largest provider of community residential beds for the JRA, according to a 1998 report. Gateways housed up to 26 youths at the ranch, plus additional youths at two other sites.

Between 2001 and 2003, the state of Washington paid Gateways about $1 million a year to house up to 24 youths for the JRA, according to information provided by Kathy Spears, spokeswoman for the state Department of Social and Health Services. The sum represented nearly one-third of Gateways’ budget in some years, based on the organization’s Form 990 tax return. As far back as 1990, revenue from the DSHS accounted for 60 percent of the charity’s budget, according to a July 11, 1990, News Tribune article.

Gateways lost the JRA contract – and the money that came with it – in November 2005. The agency no longer needed the beds, Spears said.

NEW MISSION

Without any children living at the ranch, Gateways has a new mission and is pursuing a flurry of new activities and funding sources.

In July 2004, Gateways bylaws said the group’s purpose was “to provide treatment services for boys and girls twenty-one years of age or younger with critical problems to help them be successful.”

By September 2006, the mission had expanded into:

 • “a. providing opportunities for dialogue, education, advancement and improvement of all aspects of the lives of youth and families through meetings, seminars, communications, publications and other programs and activities;

 • “b. articulating and advocating the needs and interests of youth and families;

 • “c. promulgating policies and conducting activities for the betterment of youth and families.”

Gateways remains a child-placing agency for the state, one of its traditional programs that bring in support from government contracts. It currently has three contracts with the DSHS related to foster care.

It also provides workshops to teach parents about the impacts of divorce on children. Parents pay on a sliding scale up to $60. Gateways reported serving 1,967 people in Pierce County between January 2005 and January 2007.

The organization also has added several new programs as it attempts to reshape itself following the loss of the JRA contract.

Gateways wouldn’t provide The News Tribune with any information about its programs, including how much they cost and how many people they serve.

Curtiss, Gateways’ top administrator, didn’t respond to e-mail and phone messages or multiple visits to Gateways’ administrative offices.

But based on Gateways’ own literature, plus public documents and interviews, the newspaper was able to piece together information on some of the new programs:

 • The Ranch: a teen center that offers classes in everything from cheerleading and floral design to baby-sitting and scrapbooking. Approximately 30 youths were enrolled by early April, according to a former Gateways employee. Approximately 12 youths attended on a daily basis, and most were connected with another Gateways program, the former employee said. Gateways reports on its Web site more than 60 members in the teen program.

 • An after-school program at Aylen Junior High School in Puyallup. Gateways instructors teach classes in music, dance, theater, crafts and backyard sports, according to the Puyallup School District.

 • Employment training. Gateways said in a filing with the state Gambling Commission that it makes employment and training services available to “various sectors of the chronically underemployed population, including youth, the disabled and older displaced workers, as well as individuals involved in domestic abuse recovery, substance abuse recovery and multi-generational dependency.” Details, including the number of people served, weren’t included in the information sent to the state.

 • Wooden boat building. Gateways says it’s home to a satellite of Lake Union’s Center for Wooden Boats, and provides opportunities for young people to learn woodworking and boat building skills.

One of the more successful new programs in terms of numbers served appears to be the visitation and safe exchange program designed to provide a safe place for separated parents to exchange their children. It’s the only program of its kind in Pierce County, according to information Gateways supplied to the City of Tacoma and Pierce County as part of grant applications.

The program started slowly in the first half of last year, but the organization ended up serving more than 300 clients in 2006, according to the Pierce County grant application. Some of the clients are referrals from Gateways’ “impact of divorce” classes, according to the application.

Gateways requested $30,000 from the county, an amount the organization said would pay for 24 percent of the 920 clients it projected to serve in 2007. A citizens advisory board recommended the county award Gateways about $11,000, which it did, according to Pierce County.

Gateways reported a little more than $1.1 million in program revenue in 2006, according to its annual report. It reported a $122,000 surplus in 2006, its first surplus in six years, according to a message from Beletz included in the annual report.

Last year, Gateways “made a substantive improvement in the quality of life of 1,540 people,” according to the annual report. The report doesn’t specify how the organization arrived at the number. If it counted the divorce class, that would mean 70 percent of its client numbers are generated by half-day classes on good parenting.

FALSE STARTS AND STOPS

Not all of Gateways’ new direction is panning out.

An article in The Gateway, the organization’s newsletter, describes an early-childhood learning center that was scheduled to open in January at the ranch property. It reportedly planned to offer child care for toddlers and school-aged children. But it hasn’t opened. The program is now scheduled to open in January 2008, according to a Gateways news release.

Another new program that Gateways hoped would make up for the loss of the JRA contract was its Alternative Suspension Program. It was a trial program with the Bethel School District that Beletz told The News Tribune would be expanded to other school districts. Bethel Schools supplied instructional staff, but paid Gateways no money, said Bethel Schools spokesman Mark Wenzel.

Rather than spending their time at home, students suspended by the district went to the Jessie Dyslin Ranch property.

But a few months after it began, Bethel administrators put an end to it, saying the partnership didn’t produce the hoped-for results.

That was the official reason. Former Gateways employee Anita Mayes said she and a Bethel School District employee saw Beletz “grab one of the kids by the back of the neck” and spin him around. “He put his hand on a kid,” Mayes said.

Soon after, Bethel dropped the program.

Beletz didn’t return phone calls or respond to e-mails, a faxed letter or a letter sent via certified mail seeking comment on this story.

When asked about the alleged incident, Wenzel said, “We debriefed the situation fully with both students and staff. While there were no illegal acts, we concluded that we had very significant philosophical differences and decided to end the pilot program.”

Beletz accused school district officials of failing to provide promised computers and other materials, and of failing to investigate several incidents that Beletz claimed he reported to them involving Bethel students or staff.

Beletz blasted the district in a June 21, 2006, letter to Siegel, the Bethel superintendent, accusing school officials of negligence and misconduct, saying school staff intentionally misled Gateways about the program, causing the charity to make “serious investments” in its facility.

The letter included an invoice for $103,001.56, even though there was no mention of money in the contract. Bethel didn’t pay it.

Gateways tried to partner with the Tacoma School District this summer on Quality Closet, the thrift store the district operated for years on Sixth Avenue. The school district was planning to close the business because of a rent increase when Gateways offered to become a partner, said Anita Jinks, district director of career and technical education. The parties negotiated a contract, but it never came to fruition because Gateways couldn’t secure a new location, Jinks said.

FREEDOM FAIR

Programs and partnerships aren’t the only failures. Gateways also made an unsuccessful attempt at taking over Freedom Fair, Tacoma’s Fourth of July celebration.

For Beletz, it wasn’t his first attempt at seizing the event. Beletz and John Bankston, a former business partner, surprised city officials in 2003 by making a bid to take the 2004 event from its longtime organizer, the Tacoma Events Commission. They started a nonprofit corporation called the Tacoma Patriot Fair Committee to put on the event.

Beletz didn’t succeed, but he did manage to prod city officials into opening up Freedom Fair to competition the following year. In 2005, Gateways for Youth and Families submitted a proposal to city officials to organize the 2006 version.

Beletz denied that he was behind the charity’s bid for Freedom Fair. He told The News Tribune that the idea belonged to Gateways’ development director, Malcolm Russell.

But the minutes of a July 15, 2005, Gateways finance committee meeting show Beletz talking about the idea – which he viewed as a money-maker – as his own. At Beletz’s urging, Curtiss made a motion to respond to the city’s request for proposals. Tarie Barber, a friend of Beletz and the former girlfriend of the vice president of Beletz’s company, seconded. It was approved unanimously.

MONEYMAKING VENTURES

The loss of revenue from state contracts was cited as one reason the organization wanted to take on Freedom Fair. Declining bingo proceeds was another.

For years, Gateways has operated a pair of moneymaking ventures: a bingo hall on Bridgeport Way in Lakewood, and a clothing and used-goods donation pickup service. Donated items are sold at Value Village stores.

At least one expert wonders why Gateways bothers with either program.

Gateways spends a large amount of money to raise money, but it’s not readily apparent because of the way it reports its expenses to the federal government, said Daniel Borochoff, president and founder of the American Institute of Philanthropy, a Chicago-based charity watchdog organization. Borochoff examined Gateways’ tax returns and audited financial statements at The News Tribune’s request. He was not paid for his analysis.

The organization claims the costs of running its bingo and household goods and clothing operation as direct expenses, rather than fundraising expenses, Borochoff said. In 2005, Gateways reported just $97,000 in fundraising costs on its Form 990, which The News Tribune obtained from an online charity database called Guidestar.

Elsewhere on the form, Gateways reported bringing in nearly $1.1 million from the household goods and clothing operation, and said it spent about $880,000 to do so, according to the form, Borochoff said. That means 82 percent of contributions are going to the cost of collecting the material, and only about 18 percent ends up benefiting the charity, he said.

For most charities, it should cost about $35 or less to raise $100, according to the American Institute of Philanthropy’s guideline.

Gateways employs a staff of phone solicitors and truck drivers to pick up donated items.

“They’re spending a lot of money to try to collect stuff,” Borochoff said. Gateways has considered selling the business enterprise, according to board meeting minutes obtained by The News Tribune.

The profit margin from Gateways’ bingo operation is also small, Borochoff said. The organization reported $1.3 million in gross receipts in 2005, but just $69,000 in net income.

“Why are they even doing it?” Borochoff asked.

He said Gateways appears to be wasting charitable dollars that could be better used by an organization that operates more efficiently.

“You do feel for the people who donate,” he said. “They’re not really accomplishing much with their donation to this group.”

PLAYING OFF HISTORY

Beletz and Curtiss emphasize the organization’s history in the pages of its newsletter, at public fundraising speeches and in its grant applications. They note that it dates to 1890 and the era of orphan trains. The late actor Darren McGavin’s ties to the Jessie Dyslin Boys Ranch also are noted.

The new programs for Gateways are mentioned, too, but they don’t come with specifics, such as the number of children served and how much money is spent on programs.

Gateways leaders are also raising money for a new venture at the Summit property, the Jessie Dyslin Ranch Equestrian Center’s Equine Assisted Activities Programs. According to the group’s Web site, it would include an 8,000-square-foot horse boarding facility and indoor arena and “offer opportunities for growth and healing to children who would otherwise not have them.”

“The Ranch has been here since 1926,” Beletz is quoted in a May 17, 2006, article in The Gazette of Orting. Gazette reporter – and Gateways board member – Barbara Hansen wrote it. The connection between Hansen and Gateways wasn’t disclosed to readers. Hansen now works on staff at Gateways.

“Darren McGavin (the actor who played the father in ‘A Christmas Story’) credited his time at The Ranch as a turning point in his life. We couldn’t just let this beautiful resource go away. We think other local youth deserve a chance to experience a turning point in their lives, too,” Beletz said.

Curtiss echoed the sentiments in a column she wrote for the Gateways newsletter.

“We were at a crisis stage when Jamie Beletz and I joined Gateways,” she wrote. “We watched and listened while the management described a failing organization and the Board made plans to find something else to do with their free time.”

Despite its woes, Beletz and Curtiss recognized that Gateways was valuable.

“The organization held literally millions of dollars in funds and assets,” Curtiss wrote in the newsletter. She and Beletz agreed they couldn’t give up on Gateways.

“So we started recruiting, cheerleading and lobbying,” Curtiss wrote. “Instead of packing a century of history away in storage boxes, the board and staff gathered together and re-imagined and reinvented everything about Gateways except for our mission.”

Jason Hagey: 253-597-8542

jason.hagey@thenewstribune.com