By Linda Schmidt | Sun City
After hearing about the group home planned for West Cherry Tree Lane, Sun City, in the Sun City Independent, I drove by to check it out. It is in the far northwest section of Sun City behind the churches off 99th Avenue. The buyers are redoing the whole house, and I assume they are adding at least two more bedrooms to make five or six bedrooms total, that way they can easily accommodate ten individuals which is allowed.
My sister-in-law’s mother wanted me to drive by the corner of Fallbrook Court and West Rolling Hills Drive where another house addition is taking place. It is surrounded by a 6-foot block wall but the gate was open when we drove by. The three-bedroom house in front looks quite normal but there is a whole line of bedrooms being added as an extension off the back of the house and a paved parking area. I assume it will also be a group home, which will make at least six group homes currently in Sun City.
These houses are monstrosities that can never be used as single-family homes again. I assume the parking for these will look like a business parking lot since these lucrative group homes with 10 residents each will need off-street parking. Obviously they will go for the max amount they can get from the government by putting in 10 residents. The money the owner will get starts at $1,500 per resident and goes up to $6,000 per resident per month, minimum $15,000 up to $60,000 rent per month for the investor who does not have to live in this group home or even sign any of the CC&Rs.
These group homes are called “unsupervised.” Unsupervised group homes do not require licensing. They are only required to provide running water, bathrooms and reasonable safety. Unsupervised means exactly what it says, 10 residents who are “disabled” presumably by what is called “unemployability” because they are on drugs, on alcohol or are mentally ill, are placed in a group home without supervision. I say, are on drugs or alcohol, because if they get off of the drugs and alcohol they loose their free $1,000-plus per month, free medical care, free food stamps, and free housing, plus the social workers would be out of work.
I think we are talking about getting homeless people off of the streets of Phoenix, probably some out of the Zone and into Sun City neighborhoods. SCHOA says they can’t stop outside investors from buying properties in Sun City because of the Fair Housing Act, but it does not apply since it has a “Housing for Older Persons” exemption for “property intended and operated for occupancy by persons 55 years of age or older.” Therefore SCHOA’s so-called lawyers must be using the Americans With Disabilities Act, which does not state group homes for “disabled” individuals are allowed to be built in over-55 age-restricted communities.
SCHOA’s working plan is that if the group home has one person over 55 living in the home with 10 residents it qualifies to be in Sun City, even though there are nine other unrelated individuals residing in the house. While I was talking to a SCHOA representative, he said their lawyers said they couldn’t fight the issue of group homes in Sun City. They were instructed to roll over and play dead because they feared lawsuits. I think they need to contact a better lawyer, one who knows the laws and isn’t afraid to stand up to big developers putting unsupervised group homes in residential areas in age restricted communities. They say group homes of any kind are not allowed on property zoned single-family residential and definitely not on properties zoned single-family residential in over 55 communities.
I did ask the SCHOA representative if the lot on West Cherry Tree Lane had been rezoned without proper hearings. It had not been rezoned. It is still zoned single-family residential. I hope RCSC, which has the money and power in Sun City, gets interested in this topic. These new underage residents, who could be drug addicts, alcoholics or mentally ill, will all be qualified to get rec cards. Yes, they will. They will be legal residents. I’m sure the Feds will not pay their rec fees, therefore a class action lawsuit should get them all free rec cards since they will all be legal residents. We are going to need more facilities!
Group homes need to be stopped before SCHOA allows them to be installed every 1,200 feet or about every four blocks in Sun City. SCHOA says there are at least four active group homes in Sun City already with at least two more almost completed. One of my new neighbors just moved out of a house in Glendale because they had installed a group home in her cul-de-sac. She thought they were going to get away from that by moving to Sun City. The group home people were not good neighbors. They did their shooting up in the bushes next door and their hanging out on the lawn.
If you open your eyes to the amount of fentanyl coming over the border every day you will know this problem will only get worse. With men and women being placed in these unsupervised group houses together, not in control of their minds, how long before we have nursery schools in Sun City to accommodate these poor unemployable disabled people?
Do your research people. Channel FOX 10 ran a three-part series called, “Preying On A People,” in which the owners of some of the over 1,200 group homes in Phoenix are accused of targeting Indians as easy to get into their lucrative group homes. The Feds are now investigating. I quit worrying that the RCSC board is not going to put a new performing arts center at Mountain View and instead now plans to tear down Lakeview and put the PAC there.
I’m thinking I need to get my own 6-foot block wall built around my house. I will also be setting extra money aside because when we are annexed our property taxes will at least double. What will happen to the rec centers of the former Sun City? Will they be replaced with businesses? I hope I get all kinds of nasty letters proving me wrong on all these points... but I did my research.
