Couple Bucks Neighborhood Resistance To Move Ahead With Their Dream
By Dave Reynolds, Inclusion Daily Express
September 28, 2006

CLAYTON, WISCONSIN--Katherine Glomb and her fiancée Don Burke said they are moving ahead with plans to build a home for themselves and two adults with developmental disabilities, despite resistance -- including a lawsuit -- from neighbors.

The couple said they had been open and honest with their future neighbors in their village's housing development that they planned to open an adult family home on the lot they had purchased earlier this year.

"We were just trying to be open with the community," Burke told the Inter-County Leader. "We just want to help people."

"Our intentions are pure and simple," Glomb said. "We aren't hiding anything. We talked to most of the neighbors, and they all said fine."

Earlier this month, the couple got a shock: Seven neighbors had filed a restraining order asking the court to stop the couple from building the single-family home. The neighbors said that because the couple would be paid by the state, their home would constitute a business, which is not allowed under the subdivision's covenants.

"This was our dream, and when they started the lawsuit, my dreams were shattered," said Glomb.

The village board tried to settle the issue by offering to sell commercial property it owned to the couple. The board asked the Clayton Board of Appeals to grant the couple a conditional-use permit in order to locate the single-family residence on the commercial lot.

The Board of Appeals, which includes one of the neighbors that filed the original restraining order against the couple, voted 4-0 to deny the permit.

The couple told the Leader that it is too late for them to stop the project because of the red tape.

Federal housing laws prohibit discrimination based on disabilities, a fact that many neighborhoods, towns and cities across the country have had to learn.

Related:
"Residents oppose home for disabled" (Inter-County Leader)
http://www.inclusiondaily.com/news/06/red/0928b.htm

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Reproduced here under special arrangement with Inclusion Daily Express international disability rights news service.
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