Thomas Dern, Associate Executive Director of the nonprofit Young Adult Institute/National Institute for People with Disabilities, filed the first housing discrimination lawsuit the community residential program has filed in its 50-year history.
The article states:
"Last August, YAI/NIPD made an offer on two condo units at a cost of $1.3 million. The plan was to purchase the units, which are located next to each other on the same floor, and create housing and supports for five people. These five adults "have a dire need for a place to live" and either live an a group home "that is not appropriate for their needs" or are living with aging parents, Dern told Inclusion Daily Express in a telephone interview.
Dern and YAI/NIPD claim that the condominium board exercised its right of first refusal -- which amounts to buying a condo unit out from under a prospective buyer -- in this case specifically to keep people with developmental disabilities from moving in.
...
"I personally over the past 30 years of developing group homes in the New York Metropolitan area can tell you people have said discriminatory things against people with developmental disabilities. If you were to use the same exact language that they use, and substitute another class of people, they would never imagine saying anything like that...I happen to be an Irish Catholic. Would anyone say that letting anyone who is Irish Catholic into our neighborhood would lower our property values and our quality of life?"
To read the rest of the article, click above.
Via Inclusion News Daily
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