Shameful! City suggests that owners create an HOA in an attempt to exclude disabled tenants

By Deborah Goonan, Independent American Communities

There aren’t enough hours in the day to read, watch, analyze, and report on every print or video report related to Association Governed Housing, especially when you consider how housing policies affect greater society.

The following article is just plain sickening.

A group of homeowners who live in the very small town of Poland, Ohio, just outside of Youngstown and not far from the western border of Pennsylvania, have themselves up in arms because some “renters” have recently moved into their neighborhood. But these aren’t just any renters – they happen to be developmentally disabled adults.

The Evergreen Drive home where the disabled women reside was recently purchased and renovated by an investor, for use as a supervised living home. The women reside with guardians and receive assistance with daily living tasks from caretakers.

Of course, under Fair Housing laws and the Americans with Disabilities Act, disabled adults have every right to live in a safe residential neighborhood, in a home where they can receive the care they need.

But long-time homeowners in Poland are concerned about their property values, and worried about who else might move into their little town, people who might not fit in with long-time homeowners on Evergreen Drive.

What astonished me the most was the Village Solicitor’s suggestion to his constituents: he suggests they establish a homeowners’ association to restrict usage of all homes to “single family” use, in an attempt to block unrelated people from living together in the same house – effectively blocking homes for the disabled or even unrelated roommates from sharing the same house.

Read it for yourself.

Pay particular attention to Anthony D’Apolito’s blatant admission of the true purpose behind HOAs: to exclude certain types of people from a particular neighborhood.

Poland solicitor suggests Evergreen residents form homeowner association to fight renters

Relevant Excerpt:

Village Solicitor Anthony D’Apolito told the neighbors Tuesday that even if the local government made any action to challenge the issue, he felt confident the federal government would block it and cause more trouble than it would prevent for the concerned neighbors. Instead, he suggested if the neighbors want to challenge it further, the best thing would be to create a homeowner association. Through his research of some 50 cases in the U.S., 15 percent were carried through homeowner associations instead of the government, and fewer of those changed anything.

“In some cases, home-owner associations had more standing because the things they were touching upon were their homeowner rights,” he said. “And collectively, arguments could be made about neighborhoods that could not be made about townships and villages.”
http://www.vindy.com/news/2016/aug/18/poland-council-suggests-evergreen-drive-/?mobile