State investigates neighbor's yearslong protest of Norco group home

10:00 PM PDT on Tuesday, March 20, 2007

By SHARON McNARY and LAURA RICO
The Press-Enterprise

NORCO - State authorities are investigating whether a protest of a group home for developmentally disabled women violates their right to fair housing, said Paul Ramsey, chief counsel with the Department of Fair Employment and Housing.

Broken Arrow Street, in Norco, is lined with dozens of red-lettered signs bearing slogans like "your wife and kids are potential rape victims" and "sexual inappropriate fire-setter facility" with an arrow pointing toward a home with a manicured lawn and a replica of the Statue of Liberty by the entrance.

The signs went up in 2004 when the Inland Regional Center first attempted to place a group of developmentally disabled women at a home there. Patricia Harrold, a spokeswoman for the regional center, says none of the women are criminals or sex offenders.

The investigation into whether tactics used by Julie Waltz, who lives next door, constitute fair housing discrimination is still in its early phase, Ramsey said.

The state investigation appears to be the first in which a protracted neighborhood protest of a group home has been investigated as potential housing discrimination, said attorney Michelle Uzeta, who represents the disabled women.

"The complaint has to do with behavior that is not protected by the First Amendment," said Uzeta, of the Los Angeles office of Protection and Advocacy Inc., which provides advocacy services for people with disabilities. "They don't seem to be relenting."

Waltz, 61, said her right to free speech is being violated by the investigation.

The 20-year resident of Broken Arrow Street said she has received death threats over the phone and has filed countless police reports alleging that the residents of the group home verbally harassed her.

Waltz balks at suggestions that she is targeting the developmentally disabled.

"I'm not against developmentally disabled people," she said. "I'm sick and tired of them saying I'm a bigot because I am not a bigot."

While the group-home residents are developmentally disabled women, state law allows for the placement of individuals with a wide range of disabilities and disorders in group homes, said Debby Joseph, owner and coordinator of the group home, including physical aggression and certain sexually inappropriate behavior, but not necessarily deviant behavior.

Joseph said the residents are not violent but often demonstrate age-inappropriate behavior, such as temper tantrums. Some of the women, ranging in age from 22 to 40, have the mental capacities of 2-year olds.

"I'm supposed to live next door to sex offenders and violent people?" Waltz asked rhetorically. "I'm supposed to accept that?"

Waltz said she will continue her protests and has no plans to take down her signs.

Another house proposed for a group home on the same street never opened. It was flooded with a garden hose stuck through a roof opening, pelted with eggs and defaced with a swastika, Uzeta said.

Joseph, the owner and director of Supporting Unlimited Possibilities Inc., said the five women living in the home are developmentally disabled and do not have criminal records.

Reach Sharon McNary at 951-368-9458 or smcnary@PE.com

Reach Laura Rico at 951-823-2107 or lrico@PE.com

Read the article online, with pictures: http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_D_grouphome21.3e51428.html