By Bernie Smith/ Staff Writer
Newton Tab
Wednesday, November 2, 2005

A mental health-care advocacy groups plans to open a group home in Auburndale next year for five homeless adults recovering from mental illness, but the home's location worries some neighbors and city officials.

Advocates Inc. is a nonprofit organization founded in 1975 to assist people with disabilities overcome societal hurdles, including obtaining homes and meaningful work. The organization purchased an option to buy a two-family house on Newell Road earlier this summer. The home would be converted into a residence for five people recovering from mental illness and one full-time staffer.

The group is scheduled to meet with neighbors and several aldermen at a meeting tomorrow, Thursday, Nov. 3, at 7:30 p.m. at the Auburndale Library. Aldermen Jay Harney and Amy Sangiolo, who represent Auburndale, are sponsoring the meeting.

"I think residents are sort of anxious over what is being planned," Sangiolo said last week. "Neighbors have had conversations with representatives from Advocates, but we're not exactly sure what the proposal is."

Sangiolo said she had heard from a constituent who'd heard about the proposal at an Auburndale block party this summer, but Harney said he's heard from a number of other residents.

"A lot of people in the area have contacted me, or have seen me someplace and asked me about it," Harney said, who estimates he's received between 20 and 30 phone calls and e-mails from concerned neighbors.

"There's been a kind of resurgence of families with young children in the area," Harney said. "People are concerned about the safety of their children and what type of program [there] will be."

William Taylor, the group's chief executive officer, said it's not unusual for neighbors to be concerned about a new group home opening.

"After we got a couple of phone calls, we started working with Jay Harney to sort of get this meeting together. We'll talk about who we are and address any concerns people have. Usually, concerns have to do with [the] dangerous [of residents]. And we usually allay those fears," Taylor said. "None of the people [who would reside in the home] represent any kind of danger whatsoever."

Taylor also said neighbors are also sometimes concerned with the effect a new group home can have on property values. "Many, many, many, many studies have been done to show that property values are not affected," he said.

While Advocates assists people with a wide range of disabilities, Taylor said residents at the Newell Road home will not be people who have developmental disabilities (mental retardation and autism), but those who are recovering from mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disease and depression.

The group plans to pay for the $742,500 house with a combination of federal and local funds. Taylor said Advocates recently secured $400,000 from the federal Housing and Urban Development office, and had applied for the remaining $342,000 from a combination of the city's Community Development Block Grant funds and the Community Preservation Fund.

The group withdrew its application for those funds, and indicated it would wait until after it met with neighbors before reapplying. In applications it filed with the city, Advocates said it had secured funding to rehabilitate the property from another source.

According to a preliminary timetable the group proposed, it hopes to settle all the design, zoning and permitting issues by March, and begin the rehabilitation later next year, with a goal of reaching full occupancy by November 2006.

Taylor said that often group homes become "pretty invisible" in neighborhoods once they're established, noting that recently the group wanted to rehab one of their older group homes, one that was established more than 20 years ago.

" We went to all the abutters," Taylor said. "Four of the six neighbors didn't even know we were a group home, and there were seven people living in that home at the time."

Bernie Smith can be reached at besmith@cnc.com.