What are your thoughts

Listening and reading in the local paper about the Swanson couple opening up their home to help people with drup addiction problems,... what are your thoughts on this.? I personlly think it's wonderful.I know some of the neighbours are afraid, but I feel there doesn't need to be a fear because I work in an enviroment very similar and these clients never ever bother the neighbours. They are there because they want help not to bother the neighbours

Addiction and mental illness are still scary labels to most people. I can remember when we first were building a group home in the DeCou subdivision for severely disabled people. There were people who vigorously protested that construction. NOT IN MY NEIGHBOURHOOD!

Yet, most people don't even KNOW where most of these group homes are now. And there are MANY of them in Simcoe. 24 hour supervision and quiet, gentle people in need of care. We have found the disabled to be the BEST tenants! They pay their rent and no problems. There are also a number of homes rented by the mental health association for their clients...and again, not one flicker of a problem.

So we need to reassess our attitudes in many cases.....

There are a number of "normal" people who bother their neighbours with far greater issues and far greater threats and aggravations than those under supervision for an "illness" who are simply seeking help and freedom!

I totally agree cking! However.......sometimes it doesn't work out. I recall one in the Oak St./Evergreen Hill Road that didn't work out at all. But again, the majority are blended very well.

I find that if you have family members that are dealing with mental illness and understand what it is or addictions which usaully happen because of mental illness, peope are so afraid of it and want nothing to do with it. I really think that there's more people that deal with either 1 of these issues and aren't even aware of it. This is the generation that is finally learning about these illnesses