Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

A Higher Covenant: Love Thy Neighbor To Homes Sometimes ‘Proper’ Laws Enforce Fears

Nazis were enforcing the law when they herded Jews into concentration camps. Southern plantation owners once asserted a legal right to own slaves. And some Spokane neighborhoods were built with legal covenants barring minorities from residing there.

But there is a higher law than the law of statute books. There are higher rights than those mere litigiousness asserts.

It is this higher class of law that several South Hill residents violated when they sued to block the opening of a group home for the elderly.

All of us are destined for age and infirmity. And all of us, when we get old, will hope to avoid being warehoused in one of those disinfectant-scented institutions for the dying. That very hope inspires group homes, where the elderly pay to live in a normal house in a normal bedroom and receive the meals and other help they need. It’s like living with several friends in a rental house, with maid service.

Group homes for the aged have been established by the score all over Spokane. Our community, and our laws, should insist that they be welcomed.

But in the Manito Park Addition, a neighborhood known for an abundance of cash, if not compassion, old folks evidently are viewed as a menace. Restrictive covenants for this neighborhood prohibit “business” uses. Enter LeAnn Riley, who bought the house at 212 W. Manito Place, intending to make it a group home. The neighbors who sued claim they just want to protect their property value and keep business out. But one, Thomas Coburn, revealed a fear that old men with Alzheimer’s might “get out” and encounter neighborhood children. How cruel.

The impact and function of a group home is residential, not commercial. Surely it is less damaging to neighborhood value than a household with rowdy teens.

Reflecting a commitment to higher law, summarized in the great command to “love thy neighbor,” state and federal statutes already seek to ban discrimination against the elderly and protect group homes. But whatever the courts eventually decide, community interests require a repudiation of the inhumane bean counting that holds property values more precious than the values that make a neighborhood worth living in.

, DataTimes MEMO: For opposing view, see headline: No business should break covenant

The following fields overflowed: SUPCAT = EDITORIAL, COLUMN - From both sides

For opposing view, see headline: No business should break covenant

The following fields overflowed: SUPCAT = EDITORIAL, COLUMN - From both sides