Arc and Little City & Bloomingdale Part Ways on Group Home
While communities still fight the development of community living for individuals
with intellectual and developmental, we have the right to live in the community! I
advised the people at Little City that they should take the Villi age of
Bloomingdale to court and sue them. View the video in this link of the story from
the Daily Herald.
Nice job Shawn!
Tony
Little City, Bloomingdale part ways on group home idea
Group home won’t open in Bloomingdale
Little City Foundation didn’t need a village board vote to know that Bloomingdale
wouldn’t be the site of its next group home.
The Palatine-based organization announced on Monday night that it was
abandoning plans to buy a house in Bloomingdale and convert it into a group
home for eight developmentally disabled men. Instead, it’s going to take the idea
to another community.
Shawn Jeffers, Little City’s executive director, told Bloomingdale trustees the
organization is “moving on” and has found another possible site in a different
town.
“I withdrew my application for the purchase of that (Bloomingdale) home,” Jeffers
said. “Why? Because I didn’t want horizontal hostility for the people who I
represent. And it was very clear that they were not welcome.”
Jeffers comments were made before Bloomingdale trustees voted 4-2 to formally
reject Little City’s group home plan. He said before the meeting that he wanted to
speak to the board to voice frustration about the way the petition was handled.
“I have opened up group homes in a number of communities throughout the state,”
Jeffers said. “The reception that we have received (in Bloomingdale) has been
shocking.”
Little City is an organization that helps create living and working opportunities for
adults and children with developmental disabilities.
But Little City’s plan to transform a four-bedroom house on Greenway Drive into a
group home was opposed by neighbors. The village’s plan commission
recommended that the petition be rejected.
“The fears about people with disabilities and property values and traffic and danger
to neighborhoods … we have learned to accept that on a neighbor-by-neighbor
basis,” Jeffers said. “But it seems like even the leadership (in Bloomingdale) has
adopted a similar attitude that says, ‘You’re OK somewhere else, but not in our
community.'”
Village President Franco Coladipietro responded by saying the characterization
made about Bloomingdale “was a little excessive.”
Coladipietro, who voted against the group home, explained that the project would
have been too dense with eight adults living in the house. There also would have
been two supervisors there at all times.
“If you approve that type of a use in that (residential) area, it opens up the door to
other types of uses that are not currently permitted there,” Coladipietro said.
The “other types of uses” include boardinghouses, fraternity houses, bed-and-
breakfasts and residential treatment centers.
Several neighbors said they’re not allowed to have eight unrelated people living in
their houses. So a group home shouldn’t be allowed to have that many people
living there, they argued.
Coladipietro said Little City was asked to scale back the project.
“They told us that it was eight or nothing,” Coladipietro said. “So there was no
compromise relative to the residents’ concerns.”
Tony Paulauski Executive Director
The Arc of Illinois
20901 S. LaGrange Rd. Suite 209
Frankfort, IL 60423
815-464-1832 (OFFICE)
815-464-1832 (CELL)
Tony@www.thearcofil.org
