Not in my back yard

I was adopted because my birth mother is schizophrenic. My adopted mother wanted me to meet her, because she raised concerns about our safety. My grandfather thought that she would harm us so he told my adoptive mother not to bring us around her. When he died I met her and she treated me strange, and told me that she did not like me because I was a girl. I did not take offence to it, because I was told that she is sick. But my grand father made sure that she was financially stable through SSI, and disability. She is in a group home, and is not walking the street like a great portion of the homeless population. But there was an incident, that happened years ago involving my mother receiving the wrong medication that landed her in the hospital in a comma. Over the past years I have assisted families with keeping track of there loved ones that are in group home settings.

There is complaint from two areas from the home owners in the neighborhoods where group homes resides. The other is from the families of the mentally ill.

“While working at a neighborhood office, I received a call from a resident saying that if I wanted to live in a mental ward, I would have moved to one.” What she was talking about was the fact that within her block there were at least 2 group homes of mentally ill patients. The other reason is that, homeowners say that group homes are bringing down there property value. Homeowners also complain about not having enough parking in an already limited parking situation. This was due to the cars of the employees that work at the group homes. And a whole host of other issues that are brought to the attention of community leaders. And there seemed to be not enough staffing to support this kind of operation in a neighborhood setting. By law under the ADA act, you can not refuse them from living in particular places. But it seems that the houses that when families move out, the houses are not put on the market to be sold. After a while other homeowners, notices vans arriving to take the mentally ill patients to day centers and arrive at the end of the day. This is becoming the normal way of life in some neighborhoods, around the country.


On the other hand, the families of the residents complain about the staff abusing relatives, and steeling money that is given to them for birthdays. I assisted with one family, there relative lives in an independent living situation and the agency was hired to check on the resident daily. Well in this case, the resident was in her last trimester, and was getting ready to have her baby. She had been given a baby shower by relatives prior to her going to the hospital to deliver her baby. The relative received a call stating that all of her baby clothes were gone. The only person that had keys to the apartment was the organization that was providing services. We called the police to take a report, the police called the organization to get an idea of persons with access to the apartment. Other complaints include lack of monitoring mental patients, which depending on the mental state of the person can be a danger to themselves and everyone else.


Possible solutions to these situations are:

If you have a problem with the contracting organization, contact the company with dates and times of actions that concern you.
The next thing that you want to do is to check for police records, to see if that group home has been causing a problem in the neighborhood that are on record. If that is the case, then you can show where your concerns are factual.


If it seems that they are not being attentive to your concerns, find out what contracting office has issued the contract. Arrange a meeting with the contracting officer, and voice your concerns of possible contracting violation.


For homeowners there are very sticky situations that prevent banning these kinds of neighbors, because of the federal ADA laws that govern over local legislation. That is unless there is a safety concern, and then it require legal action.

Also there is an office in court houses that have a special section called, Mental Health. This office keeps records of all of the mental patients that are wards of the court. Contact them if you are still having concerns.

Now if the group home is for delinquent youth or other demographics, they can be removed. Especially if they are causing a neighborhood disturbance.

My thoughts:

I with the effects of the current war, and PTSD and other affect relating to it. We will see an increasing number of mental patients returning from the current war. In some situations, families are not equipped to take care of there returning loved ones. Group homes will be the choice of many seeking a resolution. We should take the mind set of kindergartens playing together.