Group Homes

Baltimore is going to end up in court if it doesn't comply with federal law that allows therapeutic, licensed group homes for drug addicts, the disabled and elderly to locate in the city without community approval. Members of the City Council have been stalling on legislation to revise the zoning code. But why move ahead with a change in policy that's likely to be unpopular when you can wait for a judge to order the city's compliance and sidestep any responsibility? That may be the easy way out, the politically safe choice, but it's not leadership, it's risky business.

A counselor at a group home in Randallstown for abused and neglected youngsters was shot early yesterday while checking a noise at a door of the house, Baltimore County police said. The 46-year-old man was shot shortly after 4:30 a.m., Baltimore County police spokesman Cpl. Michael Hill said. He was taken to the Maryland Shock Trauma Center in serious condition, and was expected to live, Hill said. Three boys between the ages of 15 and 18 were at the home, in the 3700 block of Offutt Road, at the time of the shooting, police said.

WHAT HAPPENS to a neighborhood when a group home opens? Often, nothing.Police surveyed throughout the Baltimore metropolitan area said group homes do not increase crime. Officers' rare visits to group homes are to quell domestic disturbances that might occur in any neighborhood. Yet intense fear of group homes persists.Some people in Hamilton in northeast Baltimore wanted someone to step in two years ago to block nonprofit operator Forward Motion from opening a group home for troubled teens.

Providers struggle fo find sites for group homesYour article ("Balto. County has the most group homes," April 11) about the concentration of group homes in Baltimore County didn't really get to the heart of the struggle that providers have in siting group homes for people with disabilities. Social, political and economic barriers all combine to limit the choices that providers have in locating housing for the folks we serve.As the article suggests, the lack of decent, affordable housing plays a role in where homes are located.

Bel Air not striving to keep diabled out of communityI am concerned about The Sun's coverage of the group home legislation that the town of Bel Air is considering ("Group-home free zone," June 17). This legislation is not intended to exclude group homes from the town, but to make current zoning regulations more uniform.Bel Air seeks to maintain low-density in districts zoned that way and locate higher-density units in areas zoned for them. Group homes would not be prohibited. They would be treated like a bed and breakfast or an apartment building.

Baltimore County's ZIP code 21244 stretches from the bustling Beltway to rolling hills and farms along the Patapsco River and Brice Run, but its population is clustered in the older neighborhoods that flank Interstate 695.Something else is clustered in those west-side neighborhoods: group homes serving a statewide population of troubled teens and disabled adults. ZIP code 21244 includes 63 state-licensed group homes, the highest concentration of such facilities in the state.More than a quarter of Maryland's 1,300 group homes are in Baltimore County, according to state licensing records.

In Catonsville, homeowners protested when they learned of plans to open a group home for women recovering from drug addiction. Woodlawn residents complained after disabled clients in group homes vandalized the neighborhood. And in Pasadena, residents who had welcomed a home for troubled girls applauded when it closed after years of conflict.Such clashes have erupted throughout the region, as state officials move to place troubled children and adults -- including criminal offenders -- in group homes.

RESIDENTS OF Worthington Valley had something that other area neighborhoods opposed to plans for group homes did not: enough wealth to buy the home to keep out the operator.The money, however, didn't buy a richer understanding of the need for group homes to operate in residential settings.Or of the fact that scant evidence supports the assumption that group homes devalue nearby properties.Or of the federal law that forbids discrimination against them, just as it outlaws other forms of housing discrimination based on race or ethnicity that society more readily accepts as wrong.

The Bel Air Board of Town Commissioners passed unanimously an amended version of a bill that would have banned group homes for drug addicts and alcoholics in residential areas.The amended version will allow the group homes for recovering addicts and alcoholics.Opponents of the original bill had complained that it violated the Federal Fair Housing Act by denying those in recovery the right to live in neighborhoods."We really were trying to make sure that we met all of the fairness criteria in our ordinance," said Board Chairman Stephen C. Burdette.

Bel Air officials say they have nothing against group homes for drug addicts and alcoholics -- they just want to treat them the same as any other multifamily home.But lawyers for a company that runs five such group homes in Bel Air say they are different, and insist the difference gives them protection under federal housing law.Those clashing interpretations are at the center of a dispute that erupted last week over group homes in the Harford County town, which is debating legislation that would restrict group homes to areas zoned for high density.

In recent days, a misguided and unfocused debate related to the closing of group homes serving foster children would have us believe providers' only interest is self preservation. This has obscured issues of far greater importance to the safety and well-being of abused and neglected children. For more than a decade, the state allowed unprecedented, unplanned and unguided growth in the number of group homes, concentrated in a handful of least resistant communities. This development did not result in the most beneficial array of services, nor did it ensure the development of services where they are needed.

A hearing in Annapolis this week demonstrated with perfect clarity what the problem has been for all these years in caring for Maryland's most vulnerable children. Sen. Joan Carter Conway declared Tuesday that the Department of Human Resources' new strategy of placing troubled or neglected kids in family settings as opposed to group homes was unfair to the group homes. With all due respect to the group home operators who do a good job, that's just too bad. The children are our concern - not their livelihood.

The Maryland Department of Human Resources' new effort to place children in family settings rather than in group homes when their parents can't care for them "is not working," a state lawmaker said at a hearing Tuesday. Sen. Joan Carter Conway, chairwoman of the Senate committee that oversees social services, also accused Human Resources Secretary Brenda Donald of unfairly putting private group home providers out of business. Conway called Donald to Annapolis to answer questions about her Place Matters strategy, which has resulted in the closings of dozens of group homes.

Group homes are no panacea; Rosewood will be missed In your editorial on the closing of the Rosewood Center ("Rosewood's reckoning," July 5), you write, "The strain of this transition on some residents and their loved ones has no doubt been significant. For some, Rosewood has been their home for decades. It's no surprise that not everyone is pleased with what has taken place. Group homes can have their faults, too." In fact, not everyone is pleased with the closure of Rosewood, and for good reason.

: Was the state right to close down the troubled Rosewood Center for the severely disabled and disperse most of its residents to group homes? Yes 44% No 44% Not sure 12% (333 votes, results not scientific) Next poll: : Should South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford resign? Vote at baltimoresun.com/vote

The defense attorney for a Baltimore pastor accused of hiring a hit man to kill a blind and mentally disabled man for life insurance money said at least two other disabled people whose policies listed the suspect as a beneficiary had died, though their deaths were the result of natural causes and the policies had been canceled before their deaths. The attorney made his remarks shortly after Kevin Jerome Pushia, 32, was ordered held without bond in a court appearance Tuesday. Pushia, of the 4500 block of Parkside Place, has been charged with nine counts, including first-degree murder, in the death of Lemuel Wallace, who lived in a Pikesville group home affiliated with the Arc of Baltimore.

Baltimore is going to end up in court if it doesn't comply with federal law that allows therapeutic, licensed group homes for drug addicts, the disabled and elderly to locate in the city without community approval. Members of the City Council have been stalling on legislation to revise the zoning code. But why move ahead with a change in policy that's likely to be unpopular when you can wait for a judge to order the city's compliance and sidestep any responsibility? That may be the easy way out, the politically safe choice, but it's not leadership, it's risky business.

The Maryland Department of Human Resources sent letters to 23 group home providers Monday informing them that their contracts will not be renewed in July, a move the state agency said will help reduce an oversupply of beds for foster children. DHR officials say there are about twice as many slots in Maryland group homes as there are children who need them. But some of the smaller group home providers say they fear the potential closures will disproportionately hit their businesses while keeping larger group homes open.

The head of the Baltimore City Council has withdrawn her support from an effort to streamline the opening of city group homes, a decision that could trigger a costly federal lawsuit. Council President Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake said she will not vote for legislation proposed by Mayor Sheila Dixon that would create more housing for drug addicts and other disabled people. The proposal, Rawlings-Blake said, "does not provide adequate safeguards for neighborhoods." "I made some suggestions based on things I was hearing that would have made it more palatable, but it still was not palatable to many communities," she said.

After angry foster care providers grumbled that the state Department of Human Resources was acting like the Grinch Who Stole Christmas, the department secretary scrapped a plan to delay foster payments until the end of the month. A test this month of the department's new automated payment system for foster providers meant that city group homes would have received money several weeks later than they are accustomed to, with the first batch of checks going in the mail Dec. 23. Because small group homes often survive month to month, some officials feared they would not have been able to make payroll, pay bills or provide holiday treats for the kids in their care.