Public questions over safety of group home
by Blake Wolfe/The Scugog Standard

Certain residents of Durham group homes being re-integrated into the community would be made known to the public should they pose a threat to those living nearby, said one member of the Durham Region Police Service in response to concerns of a local facility.

Concerns over certain residents living at a Scugog Island facility were raised by neighbours earlier this spring, citing fears that individuals living there could pose a threat to the community. Some neighbours alleged residents had been placed in the facility due to past criminal actions including sex offences against children and, as a result, the home was under 24-hour police surveillance, according to a number of e-mails sent to The Standard by local residents. One resident, speaking on condition of anonymity, alleged that the rumours were confirmed by several police officers living in Scugog.

However, a recent letter from Community Living Durham North to the township, dated April 5, stated that the home had been purchased by the organization in November 2009 and requested approval from council to operate it as a ‘Type 1’ group home, defined in Scugog’s bylaw as:

‘A single housekeeping unit in a residential dwelling in which three to six unrelated residents excluding staff or receiving family, live as a family under responsible supervision consistent with the requirements of its residents and includes a home licensed or approved under the Provincial statute as a Special Care Residential Home, Supportive Housing Program, Adult Community Mental Health Program, Children’s Residence, Accommodation Services for the Developmentally Handicapped, Satellite Residences for Seniors and Homes for Physically Disabled Seniors, in compliance with municipal by-laws.’

A Type 2 home is similar in description, but provides accommodation for persons including those who have been ‘placed on probation, released on parole, placed in open or secure custody or admitted for correctional purposes and who are living under supervision consistent with the requirements of its residents,’ and includes those convicted under the Youth Criminal Justice Act; transient or homeless people; and those requiring treatment or rehabilitation for drugs or alcohol. The Type 2 designation is also applied to facilities where there are more than six Type 1 group home residents living in a single home.

Glen Taylor of Community Living Durham North told The Standard that the facility is indeed a Type 1 group home and said that anyone living there under that designation “would not pose a threat to public safety.” Adding that he was unsure of where such rumours began, Mr. Taylor said that community backlash to a new group home is not unusual, albeit less common with each passing year.

“This type of overreaction to group homes in not a new thing, but it’s getting less common,” said Mr. Taylor, adding that the residents of the home in question would make “good neighbours.

“Group homes have been popping up more and more over the last 30 years, but we still encounter that opposition and that’s what this appears to be.”

While he acknowledged the presence of the home, Staff Sgt. Jim Griepsma of 15 Division in Port Perry said that any resident of such a facility, who was convicted previously and could pose a threat of re-offending upon re-integration in the community, would likely be made known to the public by the DRPS, adding that very few notices of that kind have been issued in Durham.