Date: Sat, 17 Aug 1996 13:49:34 -0400 From: Michael A Pawel Subject: Re: group homes and zoning To: Multiple recipients of list MHPOLICY I have had pretty extensive experience and some success in dealing with community opposition to congregate residential living programs. The so-called NIMBY (not in my backyard) phenomenon is as ubiquitious as it is infamous. It flourishes on Manhattan's upper west side and on the west end of Vancouver, BC. Like most reactionary impulses it seems to be borne of a combination of rational fears and irrational terror, hatred and projection. This mixture is quite politically potent, and is frequently exploited with some cynicism by actual or would-be "leaders". All of this suggests some principles for responding to it. The first is not to view the opposition as a monolithic "them". A local politician who helped me out in the very early stages of facility planning (and who has subsequently been quite successful himself) told me forcefully that to de-fuse the situation, it was essential to respond reasonably to the reasonable concerns of the neighbors. (These usually revolve around loud radios, loitering, panhandling and substance abuse outside the building, and illicit activities in the facility.) With reasonable good will on all sides, these legitimate concerns can be addressed. I tell people (honestly) that I would not want to operate a facility that I myself would not want to live next to, and assure the propsective neigbors that I or some responsible person will be available at any time to respond to any problems that arise. I am in the phone book and I give my number to anyone who wants it. (This has never been a problem, and does a lot for credibility.) The irrational fears are more difficult, but call for the usual clinical approach to paranoia--straightforwardness, honesty, a willingness to listen, and some ability to conceal the rage that the most outrageous hate speech easily generates. In public forums, I have learned, process is everything. While some public bureaucrats (who understandably dread these meetings) may suggest you avoid them, my experience is that doing so only gives the opposition a gloss of legitimate grievance. It is much better to offer to meet anywhere with anyone, and let the relatively few fanatics rage on about bringing psychotic killers into this struggling area, about how bad the area already is and how it isn't even fair to the patients to expose them to this, etc. etc. I usually ask these speakers what they would suggest be done with "those people". If they respond that they should be housed on a fancier street, I ask if the speaker as a taxpayer would want to pay the price of real estate in such an area. If they respond that they think such people should be sent away to camps or wiped off the face of the earth, they generally alienate the rest of the audience. In public meetings, the people in the middle seem generally to feel some sympathy for a speaker who is obviously trying to be reasonable and is being vitriolically attacked. People who came to oppose programs have come up to me after such meetings and offered to help, because they were offended by the thinly veiled racism of some of the opponents. I also sometimes try to talk at length personally with the most die-hard opposition. This doesn't change their minds, but it gratifies them and draws their stings. They are usually crusading against all kinds of things, and if they get to know you, they seem to become less focused on demonifying your project, and turn their energies elsewhere. Finally, it's good to try to get church groups and other arguably do-good community organizations on your side. Personal calls to and conversations with leaders, soliciting their support, sometimes work wonders and at worst tend to assure neutrality. With regard to the more general legal issues, a couple of observations. It is clearly untenable for a zoning code to specify what KIND of people can live in a certain area. I cannot imagine any court system sustaining a code that distinguishes between 8 disabled people and 8 "non-disabled" people. Such distinctions based "disability" (whatever that means) are equivalent to distinctions based on race, gender, age, ethnicity, etc. However, it is possible by public policy to restrict the use of public funds for facility development. The issue here is the political will to get the job done, versus the felt need to pander to the NIMBY constituency. On a state-wide basis, the former tends to predominate, based on the not very noble recognition that it is cheaper to house people in community settings than in state-supported facilities. On a local basis, the most strident NIMBY's are perceived as politically potent. The net effect is that, in New York at least, the legislature passes restrictions that create hurdles and obstacles and sound quite forbidding, but the bureaucracy quietly develops routines for circumventing them. For example, community "approval" (a vote of the local planning board) is required for facilities of fewer than eight beds, but only notification is required for larger facilities.. There is no rationale here but to permit the legislation's sponsor's to claim they have mandated community "input" for group apartments, while not seriously hampering development of free-standing housing in residential areas. Similarly, the blatantly stupid legislative stipulation that while money saved by closing State hospital beds should "follow" patients into the community, none of these funds should be used for capital development. When I expressed the obvious reaction to this, a State official told me that there was no reason these funds could not be used to pay "rent" to a private entity that could borrow the money to do the capital development. Ultimately, of course, the political make-up of an area will be the deciding factor. The City's Long Island suburbs, home to Senator D'Amato and, until recently, the Republican leader of the State Senate, and a hot-bed of suburban flight from the urban "them", failed to develop much in the way of community residences, despite the presence of several large and emptying State hospitals. In other parts of the State, however, the situation has been significantly better. Finally, in regard to "real" management problems, there are significant issues involved in the concept of supported community living. To the extent that congregate living facilities are to be maintained in good condition, providing a pleasant atmosphere for all their residents, and acting as good neighbors to their communities, it is not always feasible to treat the tenants as fully independent adults, rather than as patients or clients. The more radical end of the deinstitutionalization supporters have viewed treatment in itself as the problem (viz. some of the discussion in this forum). However, few of them want to live in apartments with urine-soaked halls, crack-intoxicated neighbors, shared kitchens crawling with roaches, etc. As the less-functional group of psychiatric patients are liberated from large institutions, and accepted in "community" settings, serious and unresolved questions arise: how much can or should they be supervised? are they to be allowed to simply wander off, stay out all night, come home drunk, have parties with "friends" (including prostitutes, drug-users, etc.) overnight, and so on? can they be required to attend programs, work or go to training, go to a clinic, take medication, etc.? if they fail to cooperate, what is their legal claim on the housing itself, and what is to be done with/for them (the street, jail) if they are evicted for disturbing behavior? However the above questions are answered, will the facility have the staff and other resources and the legal standing to implement the policies that are developed? These are interesting questions in themselves, and examining them and coming up with plausible answers will be indispensable in responding to the more reasonable components of community concern. Good luck.