Rights Rhetoric in Community Opposition to Group Homes in New York State

In 1986, Monte Temple wrote an editorial in the Massapequa, Long Island Post expressing his indignation that New York State was “jamming down [Massapequans’] throats a group home” for people with disabilities, with which he and his neighbors would “have to live—like it or not.” Temple argued that in opposing the group home he and others were simply defending their right, “after God knows how many years of sacrifice and hard work to afford their homes, to provide an atmosphere for raising their children and enjoying the good suburban life.” This paper examines the rhetoric used by group home opponents like Mr. Temple in response to the late-twentieth-century movement for deinstitutionalization in New York State. In the second half of the twentieth century, both state and national social welfare policy for people with disabilities shifted away from large and often remote institutions, where residents received at best custodial care for the duration of their lives, to community-based services and supports. This shift aimed to reintegrate people with disabilities into families, public schools, and community neighborhoods. Despite popular support for deinstitutionalization, many homeowners rejected group homes as an unwelcome state intrusion in their lives and a threat to their financial wellbeing. New Yorkers objected to what they saw as a violation of their own rights in favor of the right of people with disabilities to live in mainstream communities. I argue that this discourse reflects larger political and cultural shifts in the postwar United States as part of the rise of the new right and the silent majority. While histories of the silent majority often focus on suburban Sunbelt communities, this exploration of group home opposition finds many of the same values and discourse in post-1970 New York State.