A Kansas City nonprofit’s plan to open a home for recovering addicts in an Overland Park neighborhood has sparked a bitter fight between neighbors this year about whether such a program belongs in a residential area. A small group of residents in Shannon Valley Estates, just southwest of College Boulevard and Antioch Road, raised safety concerns about having people in treatment in their neighborhood despite assurances from the group, Artists Helping the Homeless, that the house would be staffed round-the-clock and secured like its other sober homes across the metro. City officials and neighborhood association leaders in Overland Park declined neighbors’ requests to intervene, citing the federal Fair Housing Act’s protections for recovery homes, which prompted a weeks-long dispute between residents about the future of the nonprofit’s project.
Source: Joco 913 News
