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Subjects › Housing › Group Homes
Reviewed 10/2011

Group Homes

Contents

Introduction

Although there is not a specific legal definition of a "group home," that term has come to commonly refer to group residential environments for people with disabilities, mental or physical. In his 1997 paper on Local Control and Regulation Versus Federal and State Fair Housing Laws, Ted Gathe, City Attorney of Vancouver, discusses their genesis:

The deinstitutionalization of persons with mental and physical handicaps has rapidly occurred throughout the country in the last several decades. This has resulted in a proliferation of alternate living arrangements commonly referred to as "group homes." Such homes allow handicapped individuals to live together in a residential setting with the advantages of a family like structure. For many such individuals, group living arrangements are beneficial for integrating into society as well as economically necessary. In recent years, the group home concept has included a number of unsupervised, self-governing homes that provide housing for recovering alcoholics and drug addicts. A prime example are the Oxford Houses found in many communities throughout the country.

The increase in the numbers of group homes desiring to locate in residential areas has been controversial, as has municipal attempts to regulate their location. As a result, federal and state laws have attempted to address the discrimination these homes have experienced, primarily in urban settings. This page is intended to provide information on the various laws that apply to local regulation of group living arrangements, and on how cities have approached regulating such arrangements.

Statutes

Selected Court Decisions/Attorney General Opinions

Federal case law

  • City of Edmonds v. Oxford House, Inc., 514 U.S. 725 (1995). The U.S. Supreme Court held that the 1988 Fair Housing Act amendments prevent a city from enforcing a zoning ordinance limiting the number of unrelated persons who could live in a dwelling located in an area zoned for single family use, if no similar restrictions are imposed on all residents of all dwellings. In addition, the Court held that the FHA's exemption for local maximum occupancy restrictions, which limit the number of occupants per dwelling typically in regard to floor space or the number and type of rooms, did not apply to the city's single family zoning restrictions.
  • Gamble v. City of Escondido, 104 F.3d 300 (9th Cir. 1997). The city denied a conditional use permit application to construct a single-family residence of 10,360 square feet with eight bedrooms and twelve bathrooms to house 15 elderly disabled adults with the lower portion serving as an adult day care facility. The basis for the denial was that the proposed building was too large for the lot and did not conform in size and bulk with neighborhood structures. The court concluded that the city’s concern for the character of the neighborhood was legitimate and nondiscriminatory.
  • Bay Area Addiction v. City of Antioch, 179 F.3d 725 (9th. Cir 1999). The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act apply to zoning ordinances.
  • Children's Alliance v. City of Bellevue, 950 F. Supp. 1491 (W.D. Wa. 1997). The federal district court in held that a city ordinance violated both the Fair Housing Act and the Washington Law Against Discrimination in imposing burdens on group facilities for children and people with disabilities that are not placed in families, including a 1,000-foot dispersion requirement and a limit on the number of residents in certain zones.

State Case law

  • Sunderland Family Treatment Services v. Pasco, 127 Wn.2d 782 (1995). The state supreme court has ruled that the fair housing protections for the handicapped in RCW 35A.63.240 did not extend to "troubled youth" staying in a "crisis residential center" located in a residential neighborhood. The definition of "handicap" does not include an impairment resulting from environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage.
  • Sunderland Family Treatment Services v. Pasco, 107 Wn. App.109 (2001). The court of appeals reversed the city's denial of a special use permit to operate a group care facility for handicapped youth in a residential area. The court held that, under RCW 35A.63.240, an ordinance governing home occupations in residential areas may not be applied differently to group care facilities for the handicapped than to "families" so as to allow the exclusion of group care facilities for the handicapped from residential neighborhoods in circumstances where "families" would not be excluded.

Attorney General Opinions

  • AGO 1992 No. 25. RCW 70.128.175(2) provides that adult family homes shall be permitted uses in all areas zoned for residential or commercial purposes, and it preempts local zoning ordinances that prohibit the location of an adult family home within a certain distance of other similar facilities. The fact that the state licenses residential care facilities, other than adult family homes, does not in and of itself preempt local zoning ordinances that prohibit the location of such facilities within a certain distance of other similar facilities.

    Local Ordinances

    Articles

    • Local Control and Regulation Versus Federal and State Fair Housing Laws, by Ted Gathe, City Attorney of Vancouver, May 1997
    • Group Homes, Local Land Use, and the Fair Housing Act (Adobe Acrobat Document), Joint Statement of the Department of Justice and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, August 18, 1999
    • Library Resources (Available through MRSC Library Loan)
      • Protecting Group Homes for the Non-Handicapped: Zoning in the Post-Edmonds Era, by Michael J. Davis and Karen L. Gaus, 1999 Zoning and Planning Law Handbook
      • How the Federal Fair Housing Act Protects Persons with Handicaps in Group Homes, by Susan M. Conner, Land Use Law, January 1998
      • A Real LULU: Zoning for Group Homes and Halfway Houses Under the Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988, by Daniel Lauber, Zoning & Planning Law Handbook, 1997