Help Where It’s Needed: Right in Their Backyard

The recent research of a UC Irvine assistant professor in the department of urban and regional planning sheds some interesting light on what has come to be known universally as NIMBY (Not in My Backyard) syndrome. For those of us who live and work in the suburbs, this is easily applicable to situations very close to home.

After seven years of studying people who oppose having the less fortunate live nearby, researcher Lois Takahashi has concluded that one of the oft-cited grounds for opposition to facilities for needy persons in residential neighborhoods--the idea that property values will be jeopardized--doesn’t hold up upon examination. Takahashi notes that group facilities for the homeless or people with AIDS generally turn out to be acutely aware of scrutiny. They often go to extra lengths to beautify and keep up their facilities.

Also, she has explored why the poor and needy are opposed as neighbors. She says that opposition is not, as often thought, a matter of selfishness and indifference to needs. Rather, it is a misplaced linking association of the homeless, for example, with crime and deviant behavior. She also observes that NIMBY concerns can exist not only among white suburban homeowners, but across racial and class lines. For example, she has found that mothers in East Los Angeles protested a state prison in their area.

All of this, says Michael Dear, a professor at USC’s Southern California Studies Center, is a signal of “a collapse of the community in the classical sense, when every person in the community would take care of their own.”

Takahashi stresses an important point. There is no substitute for community education.

These insights come as the Eli Home for abused and neglected children and their mothers was beginning to accept its first families in Anaheim Hills. That project is still engaged in some neighborhood controversy, but is moving forward.

Arguments against the home centered on a concern that the shelter would attract violent spouses, a worry similar to the responses analyzed by Takahashi. The opposition existed even though the group had been cited for its work elsewhere by former President George Bush as a “point of light,” and by President Clinton.

The proposal has come a long way since a five-hour hearing was held before the city Planning Commission three years ago. And there have been some positive responses to counteract the negative. These have been more in line with the idea of fostering community.

For example, carpenters, women’s club members and other community leaders supported the project. There have been many donations of money and labor to renovate the abandoned three-story structure. Off-duty firefighters built a yard fence and helped with drywall work. Beds and furnishings were provided by other contributors.

For this good cause, and despite NIMBY fears, the shelter will be able to provide a haven for up to 45 days for as many as 22 people. The emphasis will be not on ability to pay, but on how serious the case is and how determined the people are to rehabilitate their lives. The goal is to reunite families and bolster the ability of mothers and children to cope.

In this time of special concern about broken families, that is a laudable objective. Despite the opposition, this is a project that should go forward.

Keeping in mind the big picture is important. The UCI researcher has shown how the NIMBY syndrome can put a dent in the collective sense of community. In Philadelphia last week, we saw a national appeal to volunteerism.

The civic spirit, after all, begins in our own backyard.