Norco woman's protest of group home draws fair-housing probe

Associated Press

NORCO, Calif. - State fair-housing authorities are investigating a Norco woman who for nearly two years has campaigned against a home that houses developmentally disabled women next door.

Julie Waltz, 61, was notified in September that she was being investigated to determine whether her actions violate laws against housing discrimination.

Since the state-funded home opened in her Riverside County neighborhood in October 2005, she and some other neighbors have protested against the home, sometimes with lawn signs warning that sex offenders might live there.

If she is found to have violated state law, Waltz could be ordered to end her protests and might face fines.

A call to the fair-housing department seeking comment was not immediately returned Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development is reviewing First Amendment issues before determining whether it will join the complaint against Waltz, Chuck Hauptman, HUD's regional director of fair housing and equal opportunity, said Tuesday.

Waltz claims her rights of free speech are being abused by the investigation, which is expected to be completed in June.

"The state of California is using their color of authority to beat me up," she told the Los Angeles Times.

"I'm a nervous wreck because I don't know what is going to happen to me. I cry myself to sleep at night," Waltz said. "The state of California has all the power. I'm not even a spoke in the wheel."

Waltz could not be reached for comment by The Associated Press on Tuesday.

An attorney for the five women who live at the home say they are the ones under threat.

Some of the women are mentally retarded but none is a danger to the community and the home has 24-hour staffing, said Michelle Uzeta, associate managing attorney of the Los Angeles Office of Protection and Advocacy. The federally funded nonprofit agency is representing all five women in the group home.

"The concerns are that there have been signs up there now for almost two years that seem to apply that there are rapists ... and pedophiles," Uzeta said.

Someone threw a brick through a garage door window in October and some shrubs were pulled up, Uzeta said.

"There's been an intimidating feel out there," she said.

No arrests have been made, she said.

Read the article in the Contra Costa Times at http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/16941793.htm.