For Mission Viejo, Elder Care Brings Home Issue of Group Residences

The Aegean Hills community of Mission Viejo is getting old before its time.

More than 90 group homes for the elderly occupy single-family residences in this small area of the city, and neighboring homeowners are starting to complain about problems with parking, traffic, ambulances blaring at all hours, and the loss of neighborhood identity.

City officials are aware of the situation. The concentration of the group homes makes them fume. But City Hall can’t do a thing about it.

“They call that part of our city ‘Aging Hills’ now,” said Mission Viejo Councilwoman Sherri M. Butterfield. “Cities have a responsibility to provide for the needs of their residents, but we can’t take any action.”

Across the state, cities are helpless when it comes to dealing with group homes that serve a number of societal ills, from foster care to “sober houses” for recovering alcoholics.

Group homes are regulated by the state. With no conditional-use permit required from local governments, planning officials often have no idea how many exist in their city, or where they are located.

And Sacramento has had little success changing the system.

Legislation on the issue has been defeated over the years, with the support of social service agencies wary of cities trying to shut out group homes for what some might consider undesirables.

“Some cities would like to say ‘No, period’ and bend under the power of their constituents,” said Susan Blacksher, executive director of the California Assn. of Addiction Recovery Resources in Sacramento. “There is an element of suspicion [among social agencies] that stems from that type of abuse.”

After three attempts to get a group home bill passed, state Sen. Quentin L. Kopp (I-San Francisco) succeeded in getting a committee to begin looking into the issue.

Called the Care Facilities Task Force, the 16-member committee is divided equally between government officials and representatives of social welfare groups.

Although the initial meetings found the two sides very much at odds, there has been some movement toward a middle ground.

“If group homes aren’t regulated and are allowed to run loose, everyone loses,” said Blacksher, a task force member.

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Where exactly the middle ground lies will be harder to figure out.

Some social welfare advocates don’t want all types of group homes subjected to the same type of regulation. Drawing up a law that settles how they should be dispersed within a community is difficult, because some group homes need to be near bus lines and medical centers.

San Clemente Councilman Steve Apodaca just hopes the answers come soon.

“The ones that have caused us the most concern are the unlicensed homes” for recovering alcoholics, he said. “These are the supposedly sober homes where no treatment is provided.”

Sober homes are privately run transitional residences where recovering alcoholics and drug addicts receive support from fellow residents in a substance-free environment. If no specific treatment--such as counseling--is offered, no license is required by the state.

Blacksher said such homes, if well run, can be beneficial.

“It’s very hard to recover in the first 30 to 90 days while with others who are using,” she said. “People have greater success staying sober while in that [group living] environment. In a free society, we need to take care of those who can’t take care of themselves.

“The problem is there are good homes and bad homes,” Blacksher said. “Bad homes will be perceived by neighbors as dangerous or scary.”

Apodaca said the city has received complaints about people hanging out in front of sober homes. When people violate house rules and get kicked out, they wind up homeless on the streets of San Clemente, he said.

“I certainly believe there is a valuable service offered by these homes,” he said. “They just need to require that they offer counseling services.”

While society doesn’t fear senior citizens the way some people fear alcoholics or recovering drug addicts, homes for the elderly are creating a different set of problems in Aegean Hills.

Jim Santagata said there are three group homes for the elderly near his residence, including one on the other side of his backyard fence and another two houses away.

“We look around and we’re surrounded,” he said. “They’re attracted here because of our floor plans. Everything is single floor, three or four bedrooms and there are no stairs,” making the houses easily convertible for elder care.

His neighbors tell stories about confused seniors wandering into their homes. Parking is sometimes difficult because group home employees park on the street, Santagata said.

But the worst problem is “when one of these people buy a place, that’s one less home for a family,” he said. “We wanted to live where there are families, children at play.

“Make no mistake,” Santagata said. “These places are businesses.”

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Butterfield, the Mission Viejo councilwoman, said she was on a fire department ride-along this year that answered a call from a group home catering to the elderly. There, she found out that the owner runs seven other facilities in Aegean Hills.

“When someone has eight group homes, that’s not a mom-and-pop outfit,” she said. “That’s a business.”

Butterfield has since flown to Sacramento twice to deliver a city-compiled analysis on the impact of elder care homes on Mission Viejo.

“I think one of the things we have to do is set aside the history” of enmity between governments and social groups, she said. “If we keep dredging up bad feelings, we can’t go forward.”