People Inc - IN THE NEWS

Enlightened at last about group homes

By Bruce Andriatch
The Buffalo News

11/21/2006

When work crews were building a People Inc. group home for developmentally disabled people
on Grand Island about 16 years ago, it didn't take long to figure out how the guy across the
street felt. Every time they were there, he would make it a point to wave to them - with his
middle finger.

When the home was finished and the agency held an open house, the man's opinion apparently
had changed; he offered his property as a parking lot.
Not long after that, the man stopped in to say he was looking for a job. He was hired to do maintenance.

James Boles, the agency's chief executive officer, likes to tell that story, not because it's unusual, but because it has become a common tale. Call it the three stages of group home news: virulent opposition, grudging acceptance, welcome to the neighborhood.

The stories about meetings in which a crowd shows up to oppose a group home on their street are not as frequent as they used to be. It could be that the reputations of group homes as good neighbors have spread.

It could be that people have learned that it doesn't do much good to oppose them; the only reason a group home cannot be located at a site is if the area is saturated with them or if it would create a substantial alteration to the neighborhood. Both criteria are difficult to prove.

Or it could be that their fears are unfounded. Property values don't go down. There isn't more noise. Children are as safe as they ever were. "We wouldn't be able to stay in a community if the opposition kept up," Boles said. "But there hasn't been a lot of horrible stuff."

People Inc. operates 90 group homes with 675 residents in Erie County alone, the majority of them in suburban communities. Several other private organizations and the state also operate group homes. By last count, there were 570 in the Western New York region serving 3,500 people, and the number is only going up, according to the state Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities.

Rhonda Frederick has attended every group home site meeting for People Inc. in the last 15 years. Frederick, the agency's chief operating officer, has seen the change in community acceptance firsthand. "The last five years have been a little more civilized," she says with the sigh of relief of a woman who remembers when that was not the case.

In earlier days, Frederick was there to educate and answer questions, but she became a human punching bag when neighbors didn't want the facility anywhere near them. After trying approaches that didn't work, she became a minimalist: Describe the house and how it would operate and then answer the questions about staff, traffic, parking, sewage and safety before anyone asked.

When the agency wanted to locate a group home on a dead-end street in West Seneca in 2003, Lois Spellman collected a petition with the signatures of 100 opponents. She said she feared for the safety of her children and the home's residents, citing increased traffic.

Three years later, the house is operating, and she still has concerns. She said there is more traffic and there are more cars parked on the street than before. "All in all, it hasn't been such a bad experience," she said. "It turned out better than I hoped it would."

Frederick speaks periodically to a class on disabilities at the University at Buffalo and tells stories about some of her worst public meetings. Lately, she has noticed that the stories get older and that she doesn't have new ones.

That's a trend she wouldn't mind seeing continue.

"My hope is that as younger people are in school with people with disabilities and disabled people are more integrated into their lives, maybe people won't be so afraid," Frederick said.