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Civil Rights Division Home Page Page 6 of 8 to commit the resources needed to make these systems responsive to resident and community needs and concerns. Regulation and licensing requirements for group homes are themselves subject to scrutiny under the Fair Housing Act. Such requirements based on health and safety concerns can be discriminatory themselves or may be cited sometimes to disguise discriminatory motives behind attempts to exclude group homes from a community. Regulators must also recognize that not all individuals with disabilities living in group home settings desire or need the same level of services or protection. For example, it may be appropriate to require heightened fire safety measures in a group home for people who are unable to move about without assistance. But for another group of persons with disabilities who do not desire or need such assistance, it would not be appropriate to require fire safety measures beyond those normally imposed on the size and type of residential building involved. Q. Can a local government consider the feelings of neighbors in making a decision about granting a permit to a group home to locate in a residential neighborhood? In the same way a local government would break the law if it rejected low- income housing in a community because of neighbors' fears that such housing would be occupied by racial minorities, a local government can violate the Fair Housing Act if it blocks a group home or denies a requested reasonable accommodation in response to neighbors' stereotypical fears or prejudices about persons with disabilities. This is so even if the individual government decision - makers are not themselves personally prejudiced against persons with disabilities. If the evidence shows that the decision- makers were responding to the wishes of their constituents, and that the constituents were motivated in substantial part by discriminatory concerns, that could be enough to prove a violation. Of course, a city council or zoning board is not bound by everything that is said by every person who speaks out at a public hearing. It is the record as a whole that will be determinative. If the record shows that there were valid reasons for denying an application that were not related to the disability of the prospective residents, the courts will give little weight to isolated discriminatory statements. If, however, the purportedly legitimate reasons advanced to support the action are not objectively valid, the courts are likely to treat them as pretextual, and to find that there has been discrimination. For example, neighbors and local government officials may be legitimately concerned that a group home for adults in certain circumstances may create more demand for on- street parking than would a typical family. It is not a violation of the Fair Housing Act for neighbors or officials to raise this concern and to ask the provider to respond. A valid unaddressed concern about inadequate parking facilities could justify denying the application, if another type of facility would ordinarily be denied a permit for such parking problems. However, if a group of individuals with disabilities or a group home operator shows by credible and unrebutted evidence that the home will not create a need for more parking spaces, or submits a plan to provide whatever off- street parking may be needed, then parking concerns would not support a decision to deny the home a permit. Q. What is the status of group living arrangements for children under the Fair Housing Act? In the course of litigation addressing group homes for persons with disabilities, the issue has arisen whether the Fair Housing Act also provides protections for group living arrangements for children. Such http:// www. usdoj .gov /crtlhousing /final8_1.php 8/17/2009