A while back, Barb Lickness had mentioned in a posting that a new person had been assigned to look into updating the supportive housing/community residential facility list kept by the City Planning Dept. This list had been found to be fairly accurate when double-checked by the Lydia House Task Force 6 months ago. One or two facilities mentioned on the list had been torn down and several new homes were not listed, but for the most part it was accurate in listing supportive housing and community residential facilities. During the application process for a conditional use permit by the Plymouth Foundation for Lydia House, the Foundation presented a different counting of facilities than what the City and the Task Force had observed. The City and Task Force lists both counted 18 within a �-mile of the proposed Lydia House. The Foundation came up with only 7. Why the discrepancy? The Foundation claimed many of those that the City and Task Force had counted were called �Board & Care� facilities and weren�t subject to the � mile spacing law. Among those homes they dismissed were all of the homes on my street, Ridgewood Avenue. I spoke to the owner of Bristol Place that runs the 6 group homes within a block of my house and asked him some questions about how he defines his business. He stated that he runs �community residential facilities, licensed by the State of Minnesota�. He stated that they are �Rule 36 homes� which according to the State website I double-checked, means they have people struggling with mental illness living there. I already knew all that-but I wanted to hear it from him. When I asked him if his were Board & Care facilities he stated flatly �No�.
Several of the participants in the Lydia House project will be struggling with mental illness just as the folks on Ridgewood do. They will be the recipients of mental health care services (Ridgewood folks get some treatment on site while Lydia House folks will go a few blocks away). Clearly all of these facilities provide �supportive services� whether it be case manager assistance, job finding help�whether they be licensed because support is provided on-site or not licensed because the participants travel a few blocks away�they all have the common denominator or having a similar population and the � mile spacing laws (City and State) were put into place to prevent the clustering of such populations. So I pose the question to anyone who has knowledge of the definitions of supportive housing, community residential facilities, board & care facilities�shouldn�t the homes on Ridgewood be included in the City�s definition of being subject to � mile spacing? Knowing that neighborhoods aren�t supposed to exceed 3% of this type of special needs population (and within a � mile of Lydia House it�s already 28% special needs), shouldn�t the City continue to list those on Ridgewood as being subject to the � mile spacing law? What if the owner of the homes on Ridgewood chose to open a 7th home on the street�should he have to apply as Lydia House did? Lynne Lowder Stevens Square/Loring Heights _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
