From the Forum West:A house on 112th Street in Richmond Hill will likely be used as a group home for blind and retarded teenagers, now that Community Board 9 has backed the proposal by the Association for the Advancement of Blind and Retarded, Inc.
Following a public hearing at its meeting last Tuesday, CB 9 members voted 25-4 to support the proposal, which allows AABR to use a house located at 84-20 112th Street as a residential facility for six boys ages 16 to 18. Voting against the plan were board members Regina Santoro, Sam Esposito, Maria Thompson and Joe Tedisco.
The boys living in the home all suffer from moderate to severe mental retardation. They have attended the New York Child Learning Institute, which is an AABR-run school in College Point, since they were about three years old. On Saturdays, they attend a recreational program outside the home from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Most of the children are verbal, although many are shy and quiet.
3 comments:
That used to be a doctor's office. Great neighborhood for those kids to be in, glad to see it and not the mass paranoia that erupts around these group homes sometimes, unnecessarily.
We have had a group home for cerebral palsy children on 21st Street in Astoria for many years, and I am not aware of any trouble they caused anyone.
I walk past it without fear all hours of the day and night.
This is a family neighborhood with historic homes...and we have a group home on almost every block. Thanks to Mitra Hakimi real estate and for the doctor that sold the house to the group home to get back at her neighbors who complained that she was running a clinic out of her two family house. Greedy brokers and home owners made this possible. Try putting a group home in Forest Hills Gardens. I'm sorry but this house was a historical gem - more appropriate for a museum or bread and breakfast. The blind and retarded children will not be able to appreciate it nor care for it as much as a typical family - for whom this house was designed. This is a very unfortunate.
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