Families Fear Simsbury Group Home
Neighbors are concerned about who could be moving in on their street.
Simsbury homeowners in the high-end area on Amy Lane are fighting plans to put a group home for women on their street and spoke out at a meeting on Tuesday night.
An empty residence just feet away from Mark Dymersky's home could turn into a group home for women in a matter of months. He said this is the wrong location.
“It's going to snowball. It's going to impact people who don't think they're going to be impacted,” Dymersky said. “My immediate reaction was, 'You gotta be kidding me.'”
Neighbors worry this group home will chase future home buyers away and force their property values to plummet.
“If my home is worth nothing because of what happens here, it’s really going to impact my life,” Joe Koniar said.
Another concern has been safety. Nearby residents said they don’t know who's moving in or what kind of supervision they’ll have.
“What type of people are these? What's their background?” Koniar said.
The person behind the group home wouldn't provide specific information to answer those questions, but said the women don’t have criminal records and don't have a history of using drugs or alcohol.
"Yes, I can understand that people have mystery about this, and I'm sure their minds wander into something of the worst-case scenario, but I can assure you it's not that,” John Larivee, with Community Resources for Justice, said.
His non-profit organization recently got state approval to put the group home here, and neighbors shouldn’t be concerned, he said.
"I would hope they could welcome these young women into that neighborhood, into that home, into that community, into their neighborhood, just as they would want to be welcomed," Larivee said.
He also said staff will be on site to help these women, but that’s not enough for the people who live just feet away.
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