Yates County community for troubled youth files Chapter 11

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The head of a religious residential community for troubled youth in Yates County said a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing has nothing to do with the state Labor Department’s $1.5 million claim for unpaid wages.

“I don’t think we’re going to lose that battle. I think we’re going to win that one. That has nothing to do with it,” said Fletcher A. Brothers, founder and president of Freedom Village USA, the DBA for Gates Community Chapel of Rochester Inc.

According to documents filed Friday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Rochester, the state claim is the organization’s largest debt. The court filing also shows debts of $56,340 for advertising expenses and about $4,600 for software.

Brothers said in a telephone interview Friday that the Christian enclave in the hamlet of Lakemont includes a farm worth $960,000, 40-plus acres of land recently appraised at $900,000, and a main campus area worth about $5 million.

Brothers claims the Chapter 11 filing is a tactic being employed to stall an effort by a man who is trying to claim some of the Freedom Village property.

Brothers would not name the person who is making the claim, but he said the man is the son of “two of our best supporters.”

The man’s father paid off Freedom Village’s mortgage years ago, Brothers said.

“All we’re doing is buying some time. Our attorneys are hiring private investigators and we’re going to have to get to the bottom of this,” Brothers said.

“I hate to do it, but it really has nothing to do with our day-to-day operations,” he said.

About 55 people work at Freedom Village, which currently has about 85 residents between 13 and 21, Brothers said.

Freedom Village charges $4,700 per month “to house, educate, and care for a young person, including surrounding that young person with a Godly, safe, well-staffed environment to change their life,” according to the organization’s website.

The website also states that “no young person will ever be turned away because of money, but, it is equally important that parents/guardians participate to the level they are able in their child’s care.”

But parents must show proof of income. And parents’ “level of your participation is determined by your income,” according to the website.

New York state Labor Department officials did not immediately respond to a request for more information about the unpaid wages claim.

According to Bankruptcy Court filings, Freedom Village filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy in August 1990. That case was closed in February 1999, but reopened in June 2001. That case was finally dismissed in June 2012.