He was a retarded man . He wasn’t the best person to decide he should be living in that neighborhood. Somebody let him down. I’m not saying who, just saying that the whole case raises questions.
Possibly. But poorer neighborhoods, and neighborhoods with higher crime, are usually the ones that have less clout, by their very nature. Hence they can’t practice NIMBYism the way richer neighborhoods do.
Anyway, I yield the floor to ** Feynn,** who has more direct experience with this particular sort of case and said: The people in those “better” neighbourhoods who feel that living next to people with handicaps will somehow devalue their homes or cause them grief are the one’s who are disabled. Their fear is based on nothing but ignorance and a lack of compassion for their fellow man.
But the rule applies only if you are a left-handed dyslexic homeowner in a decent area of your town, or can demonstrate that the offender suspected you of being such when the offense was committed.
I have a fairly distant cousin who is in her 60s; she’s my grandfather’s first cousin or something like that. She is mildly retarded. I’m almost surprised that she WASN’T institutionalized since that’s what was usually done back then, though she is MORE than capable of taking care of herself. She wasn’t educated at all, which is a shame, because she’d have done fine in school with maybe a bit of extra help. She is literate now, but this seems to be a fairly recent development (past few years or so). Her church friends have been HUGELY helpful for her. She’s one of my favorite relatives, and a complete social butterfly. You couldn’t ask for a better neighbor.
So when I hear about this sort of thing happening…slow burn If the man in question was capable of living on his own, I am quite sure he would have made a perfectly acceptable neighbor just about ANYWHERE.
Taxguy - You’re right on with the link between economics affecting where people live, that applies to all of us and in the case of the handicapped, they often have to deal with limited incomes which can negatively affect the quality of one’s selection in a home / neighbourhood.
On the other hand, I think you are taking too things too personally and shouldn’t be taking offense. You are probably among the many people who wouldn’t have an issue with who became your neighbours as long as they were good neighbours.
One of the reasons that group homes exist is because it makes economic sense for individuals to pool their resources and lower their individual living expenses. Other benefits are that these individuals will have more opportunities for social interaction by living with a group of their peers and staff supports can be used effectively.
When the intstitutional system was dissolved here and individuals were moved into the community, there was a number of very vocal opponents to the concept. They cited numerous reasons as to why “those people” shouldn’t be moved into their neighbourhood… none of them were good.
This case has brought to the forefront the issue of how disabled people are viewed and treated by the community.
What is it that makes some people do the hideous, senseless things they do…? The story brought tears to my eyes, man. I suspect that everyone involved (both Ricky and the perpetrators) were failed in some way or another.
Just fucking heartbreaking all the way around.
This next bit may be somewhat disjointed, as I’ve been revising it as I go. Bear with me.
Anyway, I feel that Feynn is on point with regard to the NIMBYism that has occurred since disabled people were first allowed into the light. (The book The School by Dr. Henry Viscardi, Jr. shows that attitude present in early 1960’s Long Island. Interesting reading.).
Disabled people of many stripes can be very limited in our choice of housing for a variety of reasons: There’s the issue of income; the physical layout of the house/apartment; a need for supervision. Difficulty with finding proper housing can only be exacerbated by protestations from a community that doesn’t want a large population of mentally or physically disabled folks in their neighborhood.
I’m consider myself to be very lucky: I’m capable of living on my own, though it may be difficult to find a handicapped-accessible apartment within my economic means. Yet, I feel lucky because I’m “only” physically disabled.
Stigmatization of physically disabled people still exists, of course. We’re sometimes treated as though we’re children or objects, or ignored entirely. Yet, more people are coming to realize that physically disabled people are still human beings, though we may be appreciably “different”.
I think that the rate of progress in terms of acceptance of the personhood of the mentally disabled population by the non-disabled majority is considerably slower. This is, perhaps, a reason for what happened to Ricky.
I am also very curious as to the backgrounds of the youths involved. I don’t think there could be any excuse, but I would surely like to investigate the environment that produced them.
Oh, gag me. I am not one to deny the existence of some kind of responsibility on the part of society, but that is total bullshit and I am not buying it. A shitty childhood does not make it occur to you to beat the shit out of a defenseless mentally disabled guy and keep kicking him after he goes down until he’s dead. That is wrong, plain and simple, no excuses. I hope all of those kids live to see the day when they realize just how wrong their actions were.
So if I read the article correctly, Ricky was placed in the city’s worst neighbourhood by the agency that was contracted to provide services.
Just exactly what thought processes were involved for anyone to consider placing a mentally handicapped individual into the city’s most dangerous neighbourhood?
I don’t think there will be any question as to whether or not he was improperly placed.
In all seriousness, I perhaps wasn’t clear enough in my previous post, so I’ll make the attempt here:
I think that the perpetrators were utterly and inexcusably wrong in their actions, and I don’t doubt that they were cognizant of the fact that what they were doing was wrong. They should certainly be punished for this hideous crime.
I commented that the perpetrators had, perhaps, been failed precisely because they were able to get to the point that they did: These kids have, I suspect, screws loose that might have been caught earlier, before they committed the senseless act that they did.
To suggest that perhaps they hadn’t gotten the psychological assistance they needed isn’t to excuse the heinous act they committed, but merely a comment on how sad it is that these kids can be so vicious and curiosity about whether it might have been avoidable.
