Residents enraged by halfway house in neighborhood

[The Straight Story]

DALLAS — A South Oak Cliff neighborhood is outraged that a transitional home has moved into their cul de sac.

Residents said they never imagined when they purchased their homes they would be living next door to recovering alcoholics and former substance abusers who often need a place to stay while trying to return to a normal life.

"We don’t know these gentlemen, and we don't even know who's running it," said neighbor Franklin Mitchell. "We would like to be informed before any type of situation arises like this in our neighborhood."

Mitchell has four children, and says he feels uneasy about the transitional home being in the neighborhood. He signed a petition to try to get it removed.

...

"What concerns me is, I see several men out at all hours of the night and I don't really know what's going on over there," said Dawn Miller, who has two daughters. She said one them overhead a man saying he had just gotten out of jail.

http://www.wfaa.com/news/local/Oak-Cliff-residents-enraged-by-halfway-house-in-neighborhood-136353673.html

[hobbit709]

1. Good old NIMBY strikes again.

[The Straight Story]

2. Speaking of a Hobbit: Happy Birthday, J.R.R. Tolkien!

http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2012/01/03/52414-happy-birthday-j-r-r-tolkien-3/

[ixion]

3. The irony being

that it's a safe bet there are far more disturbing things going on behind the doors of those other houses in that neighborhood, than is going on in that half-way house.

[The Straight Story]

4. Yep. Probably like Twin Peaks :) (nt)

[teenagebambam]

5. What you said n/t

[get the red out]

6. I used to get enraged over people like this

I used to get enraged when people would not want a halfway house in THEIR neighborhood, but I have come to realize that a lot of these houses are not professionally run in any way and can be harmful to the residents as well as posing problems for the neighborhood in general.

Having good regulations on how transitional homes are operated would be good for everyone.

[MisterP]

11. we had a corrupt one a block away from us, but it got a change of management

it's always been quite quiet; furthermore, it's next to a group retirement home

[Snake Alchemist]

7. Doesn't surprise.

Oak Cliff has been going through heavy gentrification for the past few years. It's the new place for yuppies.

[msanthrope]

8. They take in vets from the VA hospital. We need to pay the price of war. nt

[Retrograde]

13. There's one two doors down from me, and another about three blocks away

If you didn't know about them you wouldn't notice anything special about them. The further one seems to be for longer-term residence, and I have a nodding acquaintance with a few I recognize when I walk past (it's also across the street from a park and playground). The upside is that having these places means there's usually at least one set of eyes watching the neighborhood, since many of the residents like to sit on the porch.

[Javaman]

9. "We don’t know these gentlemen"

These people probably didn't even know their neighbors until they all had something to all hate together.

ahhh dallas the paragon of tolerance.

[HappyMe]

10. Good grief!

Wonder how many of these self righteous people belong in rehab or a half way house themselves.

[snooper2]

12. ROFL, you bought a house in Oak Cliff and THIS is what you bitch about?