U.S. Files Lawsuit on Behalf of Care Home for Elderly

The U.S. Department of Justice has entered into a neighborhood dispute involving the proposed conversion of a house into a commercially operated care home for handicapped elderly people.

The Justice Department announced Friday it has filed a federal civil-rights suit to overturn a state court order’s barring the proposed care home.

The suit, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, charges that a neighborhood group, the Broadmoor Homeowners Assn., violated the federal Fair Housing Act by trying to stop the care home.

The federal suit, if successful, could limit the power of thousands of other California homeowner associations. State courts generally have upheld homeowner groups’ legal ability to restrict commercial entities such as care homes.

But the federal suit claims that federal law supersedes state authority when civil rights, such as protection of the handicapped, are involved.

At issue is a house at 203 Calle de Juego. Alexis Edwards of San Clemente and her father, Robert Nelson, bought the home, intending to convert it into a care home for her mother, Elsie Nelson, and four other elderly handicapped persons. Both the Nelsons are 77. Elsie Nelson is restricted to a wheelchair because of knee problems.

The house is within the Broadmoor Homeowners Assn. territory in an elevated area overlooking San Clemente High School.

On Aug. 4, 1992, the Broadmoor Homeowners Assn. filed a lawsuit to stop the proposed care home, alleging that it would diminish property values.

In February, Orange County Superior Court Judge James P. Gray ruled in favor of the association and ordered the Nelsons to pay $7,163 in attorney fees and other costs.

The attorney for the Nelson family, Laurie Michelena of Newport Beach, said Friday night that she asked the Justice Department to look at the case after the family had lost in the state court.

“I’m pleased the Justice Department has now become involved in this, but I remain discouraged that it takes federal action to resolve this,” said Michelena. “This could have been resolved under state law.”

Robert Legate, the attorney for the homeowners association, could not be reached for comment.

Nadine Cohen, a past president of Broadmoor Homeowners Assn., said Friday night that no discrimination is involved in the battle against the care home.

“All we are doing is implementing the CC&Rs; (homeowner association covenants, conditions and restrictions),” said Cohen. “Our covenants do not allow any businesses operated in a home. It’s not because we want to discriminate against the elderly. Our association had no problem when (interior) changes made in the house to accommodate the Nelsons. We said, ‘Fine, bring your Mom and Dad here.’ It’s only when they decided to make it a commercial operation that we objected.”

Michelena said that Edwards and her father could not afford to pay for 24-hour care for Elsie Nelson at the home just by themselves.

“It (the care home) would not be financially feasible with only one person,” Michelena said. The lawyer added that the father and daughter had found four other elderly handicapped persons who wanted to live in the house and who could help pay the total costs.

In state court documents, the Nelson family claimed that the house, which they called Rosehaven, was, in effect, designed to break even on expenses of caring for a total of five handicapped persons.

“Rosehaven is not intended to be a money-making endeavor; it is a labor of love,” the family said in court records.

Michelena said that the state court’s decision against the care home forced Elsie Nelson to move into a commercial convalescent home. “The family couldn’t afford the 24-hour care she needs, and so she no longer lives in the house (on Calle de Juego),” Michelena said. She added that the daughter, her husband and the father still remain in the house.

The Justice Department, in its announcement from Washington, said that the proposed care home “would have generated a profit” and that a homeowners association rule “forbids commercial uses.” But the department said that the federal Fair Housing Act “requires the association to alter its covenant to accommodate the prospective handicapped residents.”

Cohen, who is currently a member-at-large for the homeowners group, said Friday night that the federal intervention in the case came as no surprise.

“We anticipated it,” she said. She added that residents of the 201-home association had recently voted overwhelmingly to continue the legal battle against the proposed care home.