09-28-09 Common Council Meeting Agenda & Packet

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Area Board of Zoning Appeals -September 2, 2009 amore secure type of environment than this group home. They also would not have any tendencies towards suicidal thoughts or those emotional disturbances, any kind of drug addictions or basically any kind of substance abuse. So that's the screening procedure that Hope House uses for this group home. The girls would attend schools in the South Bend Community School Corporation or private schools in our community. And what the house parents would end up doing is they would help them with social manners, cooking skills, using computers, also teaching them how to use household personal budgeting, money management because the girls range in the age from ten to eighteen. They would help them with those types of skills for transitional purposes. The whole goal behind the group home is first and foremost is to allow the girls to go back to the families that they came from. If that's not possible then there's a transition that they would go through as they get older and the program that they use and the skills that they teach the girls would be used later on as they grow older so that they could live independently. And that's the type of thing that they look at doing. By being at the home the house parents are just like regular parents. They would help the girls with their school studies. They would also help the girls with cultural arts, painting, music appreciation and things that parents do. They want to give these girls a stable environment. The main point for the girls that are here, if they are going to go for appointments or something, the house parents would take them to those appointments. There's no services provided on site. We've had discussions with the Building Department staff and the staff attorney on this, so there can't be any therapist on site, counseling on site, those will all be done at another location. So mainly this is just a group home for the girls that would have the house parents. Theirs is no additional traffic that would come to this particular group home. I think I read some of the remonstrance letters that there was a major concern for the increase of traffic on a cul-de-sac. The only vehicles are basically by the house parents. They only have two cars that would be at this facility. There's no deliveries being made. There's no therapists or anybody coming to this particular house. The other homes that are on the cul-de-sac would actually have more cars in their driveways than what we would have in ours. The full appearance of this home is going to look like a single family home. That's the whole point of what we're trying to do here. The importance is to give the girls a secure environment from where they were. The main thing that this group home is trying to do, is they take them out of the unstable environment, which by no fault of the girls, they were removed from and because of that the main point is to take them somewhere where they can live in a secure, safe environment where they'll still be able to have their childhood and still they'll still be able to grow up and learn how to become independent, that is the main goal here. There is no other one, that's what they would like to be able to do. Because of the way the zoning ordinance reads, we're asking for that approval or favorable recommendation from this group to go to the City Council. It's required even though it's a permitted use under the "SFl" category, it's a Special Exception and the way we've laid this out we hope that this Board realizes that what we're asking to do is not going to be an intrusion to this neighborhood, it will just be like a single family home with house parents and children and if you have any questions for me, I'd be glad to answer them. MR. PHIPPS: Mike, who did you say the house parents would be? MR. DANCH: Ruth Brimmer and John Newell. MR. PHIPPS: In this statement that vas passed out to us there are several other people listed as having positions as administrator, a program assistant, it looks like a finance and business manager or something. Are these people full time on site? 9