COEUR d'ALENE - A drug and alcohol treatment facility is seeking a special use permit to operate in east Coeur d'Alene.

Problem is, it's already operating there - and has been since 1991.

Only recently did the city learn that Port of Hope, the sober living housing complex at 23rd Street and Coeur d'Alene Avenue, was also treating offenders for felony crimes other than drugs and alcohol.

Violations range from assault to pornography charges, and the Coeur d'Alene School District is one neighbor that opposes giving the rehab center a special use permit to continue to operate as it has been.

Fernan Elementary School sits a couple blocks away from the facility, and the mix of school children and felony offenders is dangerous, the district said.

"This school serves several hundred elementary-aged students, ranging in age from five to ten years old," a letter written July 1 by Superintendent Matthew Handleman to the Coeur d'Alene Planning Commission states. "The District and the City have a shared duty to protect these children from the unnecessary risks and exposures that would be attendant to the service being offered by the Port of Hope Centers."

But the center wouldn't be operating any differently than what it's been doing for years, according to the city's planning department.

While the recovery center has been in Coeur d'Alene for 20-plus years, it's been operating in Idaho since 1971. It's in the process of securing a third, five-year contract with the state. It has facilities in Nampa and Coeur d'Alene, but during the contract negotiations it sent a letter to Coeur d'Alene that stated it was housing clients seeking treatment for felony crimes besides alcohol, drugs and mental illness.

That caught the city off guard, planner Sean Holm said.

As a rehab facility, it would comply with zoning rules for the area, which allow hospital/health care facilities. Not so with the felony population.

"We were always under the impression they were ... a rehabilitated facility," Holm said. "We didn't know exactly what clientele they were serving."

Because it no longer fits under the health care allowance, Port of Hope must gain a special use permit from the city's planning commission.

Port of Hope "promotes honesty, integrity and professionalism of all facility employees in order to ensure a safe and secure facility and maintain public confidence in our program," a letter from Executive Director Tamara Chamberlain to the city's planning department states, outlining the 24-hour-a-day supervision the facility maintains over residents.

The letter was written to the city after the city learned of the zoning violation.

In Chamberlain's letter, she said 85 percent of the facility's population has drug-related crimes. The remaining 15 percent consists of theft, mail fraud, pornography, crimes on an Indian reservation and assault-type offenders.

Staff at Port of Hope, 218 N. 23rd St., declined to comment, referring questions to directors, who were out of the office Friday. Chamberlain, in Nampa on Friday, didn't return a message from The Press.

Holm said Friday he wasn't sure how long Port of Hope has been operating against code. He said Hope representatives told the city Hope has assumed the city was aware who it was housing. He said the center's special use permit isn't about expanding the facility, but to make sure the current operation becomes compliant.

According to Port of Hope's special use permit request, its current population is 25 beds. The special use permit would be for 21 to 43 beds. Of those under the permit, just over half would be housed in the facility while the others would be monitored at their homes.

The typical offender stays between 90 and 180 days, Chamberlain's letter states, while offenders are required to gain employment, attend treatment classes and undergo drug and alcohol tests.

"These young children are incredibly vulnerable and impressionable, and the proximity of the facility creates too severe a risk to warrant approval of the proposed use," Handelman's letter on behalf of the school district states. "This facility is appropriate in some areas, but the proposed location is not compatible with the safety concerns of the young children living and traveling in the area."

Some neighbors of the facility say they understand the school district's concerns, but the facility has been a good neighbor for the most part.

"We haven't had any problems, but there are a lot of transient-looking people going up and down the street," said Richard Fortin, who's lived on Coeur d'Alene Avenue, one block away from Port of Hope, for eight years.

Other than that, he said, the center hasn't been the source of any contention in the area.

"I totally understand it. I have two young kids myself, 10 and 12," Fortin said of the school district's concerns, but then added: "Personally, if they're making a difference in peoples' lives, I wouldn't be opposed to it ... They're not hurting anyone."

Neighbor Damian Sullivan has lived down the block from the center for 13 years. He also said Port of Hope hasn't been the source of problems, other than the steady traffic of transient-looking people going in and out of the center. Two of his three children go to Fernan Elementary, 520 N. 21st St., and he tells them to be aware of their surroundings and avoid a nearby alley just to be safe.

"They do a good service as far as I'm concerned," he said. "But it's always concerned me."

Last month, the Dalton Gardens City Council unanimously turned down a nonprofit organization's request to open a federal prisoner residential re-entry facility on Government Way.

Port of Hope's special use permit request will go before the Coeur d'Alene Planning Commission at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Community Room of the public library. Either way, the commission's decision can be appealed to the City Council later.