Flip side of a group home and neighborhood

I thought this was going to be about another neighborhood trying to keep people in need out but wow, was I wrong on this. If you ever wanted to know the flip side of the story, here's one that will leave your blood pressure boiling.

Group homes stir anger in quiet Normandy Park
July 29, 2012
Normandy Park residents accuse for-profit care provider Hanbleceya of secrecy and deception in housing mentally ill and drug-addicted clients in their neighborhoods, and were even more dismayed when told state and local authorities have no power to step in.
By Christine Willmsen
Seattle Times staff reporter

One person heard the rumor at a Normandy Park book club. Another got wind of it chatting with neighbors on a walk. Then residents saw strangers moving in next door.

By the time citizens of this small, tight-knit suburb, just south of Seattle, realized that a private, for-profit California company was buying houses and moving in the severely mentally ill and drug-addicted — well, it was too late.

In the past six months, the La Mesa-based company, called Hanbleceya, has opened a treatment clinic in Normandy Park, bought three homes and rented two others. The company has plans to expand in Normandy Park, and also possibly to Burien and Des Moines.

When residents sought answers from Hanbleceya, which charges about $100,000 a year per client for treatment and housing, they say they encountered secrecy and deception. What has disturbed them most is that there appears to be no government oversight of this new breed of long-term mental-health treatment that couples semi-independent living with off-site clinical care.

Because Hanbleceya doesn't provide treatment inside the homes, they are not considered residential treatment facilities, which are regulated by the state Department of Health (DOH). And because Hanbleceya doesn't provide other supervised care inside the homes, they most likely do not fall under Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) regulation.
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