Anti-Group-Home Opposition Rises Again in Aspen Hill? (Part III)

For the last two days, we covered some of the origins of neighborhood opposition to rental homes in general, and to group-homes in particular. In no case was there such a degree of opposition, nor such descents into nastiness, as in the case of group homes providing housing for disabled persons suffering from psychiatric disorders.

---

First, I must digress:

I know something, firsthand, about mental illness. I further know something about both the national and local mental healthcare industry, both from personal experience and long research.

I am extremely fortunate in that I come from a rather poor but scrupulously provident old-school family. Since the time of the second World War, we have tended to have careers in government. It's safe, it's secure, the benefits have been excellent, and if you are the sort of person who can live frugally, save your money, and make payments on time, and got into the market at the right time, you can retire well (if modestly) into a house that is no longer mortgaged. Also, a government job traditionally will advance you in your career on the basis of competence and talent. We may not be particularly talented but we are very diligent, and very competent at bureaucracy.

The house where I reside is paid for, un-mortgaged, and both of my siblings enjoy comparable status. We don't rent our homes, we rent out second properties, all within permits and code, to responsible people who pass background checks... and these are usually also working for the government. Thus, we can take a somewhat different view of the politics of foreclosure, of rentals -- legal or otherwise -- than perhaps most others. We have income, and own properties outright. We are rather poor in terms of income... but every last thing we have in our possession is paid-for, owned.

Because I'm kind of poor, I have tended to rely on public healthcare for much of my adult life.

I don't rely on it anymore, because a public healthcare facility contracted by Montgomery County made a deep mis-diagnosis perhaps 20 years in the past. I don't have to work, though I do work when someone will hire me, and I have my own projects. As to my disability, I have to advise people that it's worth spending your own money to get a second opinion, because otherwise you could wind up like me, and have county-funded quacks treating your thyroid deficiency with dangerous and semi-experimental mental healthcare drugs, which will over time only make you worse. I am considered fully disabled by the Federal government, and the county's contractor's failures amount to a monthly paycheck for me. It's a small check, and not sufficient to cover even subsidized rents here in Montgomery County. I am fortunate to come from a rather poor, but provident and well-invested family of retired career government workers. I have a home in Aspen Hill.

---

Many, if not most, of the homeless in Montgomery County are suffering from a variety of ills, ranging from bad educations through general ineptitude through substance-abuse problems and various forms of addiction.

Recent changes in both Federal and Maryland law and Montgomery County policy all add up to the same thing. Drug addiction and consequent minor offenses against the law are seen as a medical problem rather than as criminality. Illness, thus, is something to be treated, rather than an offense against society.

Scattered Site Housing theory proclaims that it's generally not the best idea to have such sites populated only by one class of beneficiaries of the system. Thus, you don't have one house full only with autists, or schizophrenics, or developmentally-disabled, or traumatic brain-injury victims. Theory dictates that you mix 'em up.

---

At the height of the public outcry against "turning Aspen Hill into a dumping ground of insane retarded dopers in wheelchairs", as a new member of the board of the Aspen Hill Civic Association, Inc, I was informed of the report of a delegation we'd sent to go visit one of the highly-visible group homes on Heathfield Road. I can't go into the details of the various afflictions of the people involved, but the delegation's report included the facts that the place had every last State and County permit required, and some additional certifications indicating that the owner/operator was making a career out of this and had the academic qualifications to do so.

I came away from the meeting with a feeling that at long last, disabled people were being properly cared for in a way that reflected well on Society.

I also came away feeling somewhat less than charitable about the attitudes of some of my fellow board members, which could be summarized as "there's no way we can get them out of there"... as if it was a terrible shock to them that there were no legal means to expel from the community a small colony of harmless, mostly elderly, disabled people.

I had to wonder, if they were that adamant about evicting people from the community who were barely able to feed or dress themselves, how would they feel about people whose disabilities weren't so severe or physically obvious?

TO BE CONTINUED