DALLAS OBSERVER: A Frisco Homeowners Association Is Suing to Stop Homeless Teens from Moving In
“The Board of Directors has requested that we write to you,” the letter begins, without identifying who those directors are.
By Amy Silverstein
September 9, 2014
Since 2006, the City House nonprofit has offered shelter for homeless kids and young adults in two houses in Plano, smack in the middle of residential neighborhoods. City House claims the kids’ neighbors never seemed to mind. How does City House pull this off? By operating out of existing houses that look just like all the other nice houses on the street. “When you drive down the street you shouldn’t notice” a difference, says City House spokesman Rob Scichili. “It’s a normal house in a normal neighborhood, and that’s the way we operate.”City House, a Collin County-based homeless nonprofit that has been around in some form since 1988, is now trying to expand its shelter program into Frisco. The nonprofit purchased a house in April in the Plantation Resort neighborhood and renovated it with a $47,000 grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, with plans to shelter females between the ages of 16 to 21. City House planned to open its doors sometime this month, with two females already set to move in. But now “that time table has been suspended,” Scichili says.That’s because the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s approval is no match for the local homeowners association. At the end of August, a bunch of anonymous Frisco homeowners, described by their attorneys only as the Board of Directors for the PR2 Homeowners association, filed a lawsuit against City House, alleging that providing shelter to homeless teens violates the HOA’s covenants. Read more: http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2014/09/city_house_frisco_hoa.php