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Posting #191 – HB967 Legislation from Delegate Chris Peace- MechanicsvilleUpdate:
SB338 States:
Date: 02/02/2010 Delegate Peace, Today we discovered the amendment to HB967 we would like to know who proposed the amendment. HB 967 Residential facility; meaning to include assisted living facility and group homes, http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?ses=101&typ=bil&val=hb967 Until this bill was amended on January 29 and became HB967H1, we would not have given it a second though. But on January 29 the following in red was added: A. Zoning ordinances for all purposes shall consider a residential facility in which no more than eight individuals with mental illness, mental retardation, or developmental disabilities reside, with one or more resident counselors or other staff persons, as residential occupancy by a single family. For the purposes of this subsection, mental illness and developmental disability shall not include current illegal use of or addiction to a controlled substance as defined in § 54.1-3401 or any offense for which a sex offender is listed on the registry pursuant to the Sex Offender and Crimes Against Minors Registry Act (§ 9.1-900 et seq.). No conditions more restrictive than those imposed on residences occupied by persons related by blood, marriage, or adoption shall be imposed on such facility. For purposes of this subsection, "residential facility" means any group home or other residential facility for which the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services is the licensing authority pursuant to this Code. We find HB967H1 extremely troubling in that it would ban ANYONE listed on the Sex Offender Registry from receiving the care and services they might need to live, recoup or age with dignity. While we believe that the homes and facilities in which care is given should be apprised of the individuals status as being listed on the Sex Offender Registry, this type of care is a right we should extend to all citizens within a civilized society. Caring for the sick, the injured, and the elderly is a responsibility not a luxury. Anyone who has been in an auto accident, suffered a sports injury, a brain injury, a stroke, had a hip or knee replaced, paralysis, lost a limb or even received an organ transplant would be ejected by their healthcare provider from their hospital and into a rehabilitation or assisted care facility near their home. What about those who are aging in their 70’s, 80’s or 90’s. They shouldn’t be in an apartment or home alone or perhaps their spouse is unable to care for them. That citizen should be able to move into an assisted living facility alone or with their spouse to live out their last years with dignity. This bill has just outlawed any married Registered Offender from entering such a facility with their spouse. Now the spouse will have to make the decision do they get the care they need or do they stay with their spouse. Assisted care facilities deal with and are equipped to deal with those who are acting inappropriately or placing other residents at risk. Many have Alzheimer’s and are confused and combative. These problems are a given and the caregivers are equipped to cope with them. The facilities then in question are the assisted living facilities where little care is needed and supervision is limited. These facilities already have the right and responsibility to move those in need of more intensive care to other facilities where that care can be given. To totally ban Registered Sex Offenders from these facilities without providing another option for them is shameful. Virginia’s homeless shelters have already banned Registered Sex Offenders and now possibly rehabilitation and assisted living facilities, what’s next hospitals? The only alternative is for Virginia to provide rehabilitation and assisted living facilities where RSO’s and their spouses can receive the same quality of care and there are enough facilities throughout Virginia that they can stay in their current community. Until those facilities are built and ready to serve these citizens, this type of legislation should not even be proposed. This bill virtually ensures that some elderly or mentally handicapped person will be left to die in the streets of Virginia if he/she has no family to look after them in their old age. Would you really prohibit a man or woman from the care they need simply because they made one mistake which they had paid for decades earlier? We should hope not. The unreformed offenders by this age would still be in jail or under the care of the SVP treatment center. So this bill only punishes those who have already paid their dept to society. Do we now pass laws simply out of fear without conscience? What damage has 9-11 really done to us? Not only is this bill now appeasing the paranoia of the general public, it condones it. We once lived in a country where equal protection under the law was a constitutional right, do we need to amend this to include, unless we are scared with no reason? Do not turn our country, our state into the Land of the outcast, and the home of the scared. Our Bill of Rights is not something to be given up lightly, once you do, we will find ourselves upon a slippery slope of human rights violations that will be the undoing of our great country. The country my husband fought for in the first Iraqi war. I will not go quietly as political ambitions do not outweigh the importance of freedom. Thus far we have purposefully avoided making any references to the Holocaust, but the parallels are becoming too much to ignore. I cannot help but reflect upon the chapter in Schindler’s List called the Liquidation of the Ghetto. During that chapter the sick and infirm were euthanized to spare them the horrors to follow. Our belief is that if this bill were to become law that it should be amended to allow for State Sponsored Euthanasia. This at least is more dignified and humane than to force one to die in the streets, alone and cold. You may think this a bit melodramatic, but I ask you to consider how inhumane this bill has become? Virginia’s Registered Offenders are currently told where they can live, where they work, where they can be, and now where they die. What could be next? Where they can be buried? Don’t worry, the Federal laws are already addressing that. They are trying to ban the registered from being buried at Arlington Cemetery, we expect more in the future. Please withdraw the amendment to HB967H1. RSOL of Virginia *We have learned from Delegate Peace that Chip Dick with the Realtors Association proposed the amendment. We need you to write to your Delegate and Senator and to the sponsor of this bill Delegate Chris Peace, DelCPeace@house.virginia.gov asking them to remove the amendment that added Sex Offenders. On February 3, 2010 the RSOL of Virginia met with a Delegate who is a member of the House Sub-committee on Counties, Cities and Towns that allowed the amendment. We asked the Delegate if anyone questioned the amendment when it was proposed. He responded, "No, when the amendment was proposed to add sex offenders, we all said that sounds reasonable and it passed". We then asked the Delegate, now that he understood what the amendment actually would do, would he have still voted for it, he replied "No, I would not have". He also informed us that since the Bill was being read for the third time later that afternoon, that it was too late to be stopped by the House. It would be up to the Senate to stop this terrible bill from being passed. On the afternoon of February 3, 2010 HB967H1 was read for the third time and passed the House 98 to 0 as a block vote. This Bill MUST be STOPPED in the Senate!
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