For the last few months, local opposition has been building in Lyndonville to a residential home for people with mental disabilities. The facility houses no more than two people who need support during a mental health crisis but do not require hospitalization. Neighbors say the leased home violates town zoning laws.
The debate highlights a tension between neighbor resistance and the state policy goal of providing services to people in their communities.
At the end of October, Joan Hahr saw moving vans at the house across the street from hers on a quiet hill overlooking Lyndonville. She learned the home is being leased by Northeast Kingdom Human Services to provide temporary housing and some supervision for people in mental health crisis. The town’s zoning administrator had ruled there was no need for a permit or a public hearing because, in his view, this was a residential, not commercial use that should be allowed in the zone. At Thursday’s Design Review Board meeting, Hahr and about 20 other neighbors said he’s wrong—that NKHS is a business and should not be allowed to operate in a residential neighborhood.
“I am appealing this because the facility is running a crisis bed for psychiatric patients, patients whose conditions could range from bi-polar disorder to paranoid schizophrenia. These are individuals whose mental conditions warrant constant supervision as they are deemed unsafe to themselves and others, often due to violent behavioral patterns,” Hahr told the Board.
Other opponents said they now carry items to protect themselves as they walk around the neighborhood, and fear that their real estate values are dropping.
But the facility also has its defenders. Leigh Larocque, a state representative from Barnet, says the loss of the Waterbury Hospital during Tropical Storm Irene has made it necessary to find these temporary homes, not for violent patients, but for those who need residential support to manage their mental illnesses and attend therapy sessions.
“It could be a relative of mine or yours that needs the care, temporary care, and I think we can make exceptions in many situations. We have to move to a different rule just to take care of that problem,” Larocque said.
Larocque says the home is just a six-month fix until the new mental health care facilities are completed in Berlin and elsewhere.
The “rule” he refers to is at the crux of this debate. While local zoning may seem to prohibit a social service agency from leasing space for clients in a non-commercial zone, state statute also grants exceptions for residential or group care homes. And the attorney for Northeast Kingdom Human Services warned that closing this home could break other laws barring discrimination in housing. NKHS clinical director Bernard Norman told the neighbors that it’s not a typical business, and should be allowed to provide shelter in a residential zone.
“We have to operate like a business but in a sense we are part of the community, we do things on behalf, particularly, of those who are most vulnerable, those who have a disability,” Norman said.
Norman says some people can manage their mental illness better in community settings than in hospitals. The Lyndonville facility replaces a similar one that was operated at a St. Johnsbury motel for several years. State Police Lieutenant Mike Henry says police were called there only three times, when patients who had stopped taking medication agreed to be hospitalized. On the other hand, Henry said police responded almost 25 times over the same time period to people with mental health issues at their own residences throughout Lyndonville.
The Review Board asked each side to provide more legal arguments before they decide whether or not to require the group home to seek a permit.
