Sad Farewell to House of Sarah

Historically, when a halfway house for former jail inmates is run out of town, it’s because of protests from neighborhood residents who just didn’t want “those” people living near them. Or it might be because the halfway house residents were disrupting the neighborhood.

That’s what makes the forced closure of the House of Sarah, Orange County’s only halfway house for former female prisoners, so unusual. None of those negative conditions existed.

The house for nonviolent offenders working their way back into society had been on a quiet, residential Costa Mesa street for 21 years. Other residents didn’t complain. Initially wary, they came to consider the home’s residents good neighbors. In fact, for about 20 years, zoning and other officials in Costa Mesa never even knew Sarah House was in their city.

But in a check of such facilities, city officials discovered the existence of the House of Sarah, which somehow opened as a nonconforming use. One city official who acknowledged that it was “very well run and needed in the community” explained that “. . . the laws have to be enforced.”

Which in this case raises the question: Why? It’s certainly not unheard of to allow a zoning variance.

Costa Mesa can’t be considered hardhearted in its approach to social services. It has about 120 such group homes. The halfway house’s problem was that it was in a strictly single-family residence neighborhood. It’s disappointing that the city couldn’t have granted a variance in this case for a proven good neighbor.

With the increase in the county’s arrest rate for women in the last decade exceeding the national rate, more, not fewer, halfway homes are needed. In the 21 years of its existence, the House of Sarah provided job and life skills training, educational opportunities, employment and other rehabilitation that helped put more than 600 former prisoners back into the community as productive citizens.

The House of Sarah is closed and gone. But it left a legacy. It proved that halfway houses can not only coexist in residential neighborhoods but be good neighbors too. That reality should find a place in local zoning ordinances.