Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, May 16, 1995 TAG: 9505160089
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Short
A federal law banning housing discrimination against the disabled does not allow an exception for single-family zoning ordinances that bar large groups of unrelated people from living together, the court ruled.
The 6-3 decision focused on an effort by officials in Edmonds, Wash., to force a home for recovering alcoholics and drug addicts to move out of a single-family neighborhood.
``If the decision had gone the other way, it could have led to the exclusion of group homes for the disabled from communities across the nation,'' said William F. Sheehan, lawyer for the group home, Oxford House.
Monday's ruling does not apply to group homes of nondisabled people such as college students or convicted criminals, he said.
Gregory McCracken of the Pacific Legal Foundation, which supported the city's appeal, expressed disappointment. Decisions on where group homes may be located ``should be exclusively within local government decision-making,'' he said. ``For Congress to interfere is particularly irksome.''
The group-home decision was based on the federal Fair Housing Act, which bars bias against the physically and mentally disabled, including recovering alcoholics and drug addicts.
by CNB