Supervisor John Foust's McLean Neighborhood is Group-Home Free!

'No Group-Homes Here, Thank You!'
Foust and CSB's Top Officials Live Miles Away From CSB Facilities,
But Have No Problem Proposing Group-Homes For Other People's Neighborhoods

By The Frace-Heller Family
Updated: March 31, 2012 12:12 p.m.
Published: March 29, 2012
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Pimmit Hills, Falls Church, VA -- The McLean cul-de-sac where Dranesville District Supervisor John W. Foust (D) resides with his family boasts 8,400 square-foot homes (average sale price: $2.7-$3.2 million) set on house lots of nearly a full acre.

<Fairfax County Supervisor John W. Foust's residence on Swinks Mill Court in McLean, Virginia.

Swinks Mill Court offers its well-heeled residents large back yards where almost half the homes have designer swimming pools.

But what Supervisor Foust's Swinks Mill neighborhood does not sport is the kind of group-home that the Fairfax County-Falls Church Community Services Board (CSB) is now proposing to build in another part of Mr. Foust's Dranesville District, Pimmit Hills, a neighborhood subdivision 3 miles away from Swinks Mill, on the other side of Dolley Madison Blvd., the main drag in McLean (aka Chain Bridge Road, state highway 123).

The proposed CSB-operated group-home would be used to house adults -- the elderly and "aging" in the words of CSB officials -- including persons with severe mental disabilities, handicaps, and psychological maladies for whom the County is, in effect, the 'landlord of last resort'.

Dranesville District Supervisor John W. Foust>

Supervisor Foust, who for 26 years practiced construction law in Fairfax County before being elected Dranesville District's top official in 2007 (re-elected last November to a second term), is not alone in commending to build property-value-killing group-homes in other people's neighborhoods:

• CSB's executive director, George Braunstein, resides in Fairfax City along quiet tree-lined Woodland Drive, yet the closest CSB group-home to Mr. Braunstein's neighborhood is 2 miles away.
• Carolyn Castro-Donlan, CSB's deputy director, enjoys her Folley Lick Court home in Herndon, while she's more than 16 miles from the nearest CSB facility.
• CSB's investment & development manager, Jeannette Cummins Eisenhour, doesn't reside in Fairfax County, but her Alexandria home on East Oxford Avenue is more than 5 miles from a CSB-operated property.
• Belinda A. Buescher, CSB's communications director, lives in an Annandale cul-de-sac called Cockney Court, a stone's throw away from beautiful Long Branch Stream Valley Park, but by car the closest CSB group-home is over a mile-and-a-half away on the opposite side of the park's winding stream of the same-name.
  

County-run group-homes like the one CSB is proposing for Cherri Drive in Pimmit Hills are for persons whose personal histories make it nearly impossible for them to obtain accommodations in privately-owned residential and treatment facilities.

Such persons can pose a threat to the safety of a private landlord's other tenants, especially when the CSB 'client' has a history of psychotic, dangerous behaviors or criminal activities.

CSB acknowledges that a hefty percentage of its clientele includes persons who have had what CSB officials call "interaction with the criminal justice system".

By far the largest segment of CSB clientele are those beset with severe mental health problems, impairments and intellectual disabilities.

Persons exhibiting varying sub-types of Bipolar Disorder and Schizophrenia are common amongst CSB clientele.

Behavior of persons afflicted in these ways can turn violent, suddenly and without warning.

Private group-home operators don't want the risk inherent in dealing day-to-day with persons at such high risk, where a client's simple act merely forgetting to take medication can have serious consequences including violent confrontations.

For such unpredictable and potentially dangerous persons, the County is thus landlord of last resort.

It is for such persons that CSB builds and maintains facilities like the one it proposes to construct in Pimmit Hills.

Supervisor Foust and his fellow county supervisors have direct jurisdiction over CSB, and by political necessity a CSB facility proposed for any district must go through the respective supervisor in charge of that district, and ultimately before the full board of supervisors, before getting final approval. <<<<<

Group-Home Horror Stories:
(Links to media reports of violence at Group-Homes)

Middletown man accused of assault at group home
Published: Thursday, March 22, 2012
By LAUREN SIEVERT
The Middletown Press
MIDDLETOWN, CT — A city man at a group home is facing a breach of peace charge after allegedly assaulting another resident, police report.
(Continued -- Click on above link.)

At State-Run Homes, Abuse and Impunity
Published: March 12, 2011
By DANNY HAKIM
The New York Times
Nearly 40 years after New York emptied its scandal-ridden warehouses for the developmentally disabled, the far-flung network of small group homes that replaced them operates with scant oversight and few consequences for employees who abuse the vulnerable population.

A New York Times investigation over the past year has found widespread problems in the more than 2,000 state-run homes. In hundreds of cases reviewed by The Times, employees who sexually abused, beat or taunted residents were rarely fired, even after repeated offenses, and in many cases, were simply transferred to other group homes run by the state.
(Continued -- Click on above link.)

Parolee Arrested in Alleged Sexual Assault at Group Home in Ferndale

Group home employee arrested in assault