Opinion ID: 1111130
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Operating a Group Home Constitutes Residential Use

Text: 7. At issue here is the proper interpretation of the restriction, No lot shall ever be used for any purpose other than single family residence purposes. The trial court held that the Community's use of property as a group home for four, unrelated individuals with AIDS violated this restriction. In reaching its conclusion that the group home violated the residential use restriction, the trial court made two specific findings regarding the nature of the current use of the home. The court found that the Community uses the house ... as a non profit hostel for providing services to handicapped individuals and that the Community uses of the residence are much closer to the uses commonly associated with health care facilities, apartment houses, and rooming houses than uses which are commonly associated with single family residences. Thus the trial court apparently concluded that the property was being used for commercial purposes rather than residential purposes. However, we find that the trial court's conclusions are incorrect as a matter of law. 8. It is undisputed that the group home is designed to provide the four individuals who live in the house with a traditional family structure, setting, and atmosphere, and that the individuals who reside there use the home much as would any family with a disabled family member. The four residents share communal meals. They provide support for each other socially, emotionally, and financially. They also receive spiritual guidance together from religious leaders who visit them on Tuesday evenings. 9. To provide for their health care needs, the residents contract with a private nursing service for health-care workers. These health-care workers do not reside at the home, and they are not affiliated with the Community in any way. The number of hours of service provided by the health-care workers is determined by a case-management group assigned by the state pursuant to a state program. The in-home health services that the residents receive from the health-care workers are precisely the same services to which any disabled individual would be entitled regardless of whether he or she lived in a group home or alone in a private residence. The health-care workers do most of the cooking and cleaning. The residents do their own shopping unless they are physically unable to leave the home. 10. The Community's role in the group home is to provide oversight and administrative assistance. It organizes the health-care workers' schedules to ensure that a nurse is present twenty-four hours per day, and it provides oversight to ensure that the workers are doing their jobs properly. It also receives donations of food and furniture on behalf of the residents. The Community provides additional assistance for the residents at times when they are unable to perform tasks themselves. A Community worker remains at the house during the afternoon and evening but does not reside at the home. The Community, in turn, collects rent from the residents based on the amount of social security income the residents receive, and it enforces a policy of no drinking or drug use in the home. 11. The Community's activities in providing the group home for the residents do not render the home a nonresidential operation such as a hospice or boarding house. As the South Carolina Supreme Court noted when faced with a similar situation involving a group home for mentally impaired individuals: This Court finds persuasive the reasoning of other jurisdictions which have held that the incident necessities of operating a group home such as maintaining records, filing accounting reports, managing, supervising, and providing care for individuals in exchange for monetary compensation are collateral to the prime purpose and function of a family housekeeping unit. Hence, these activities do not, in and of themselves, change the character of a residence from private to commercial. Rhodes v. Palmetto Pathway Homes, Inc., 303 S.C. 308, 400 S.E.2d 484, 485-86 (1991). In Jackson v. Williams, 714 P.2d 1017, 1022 (Okla.1985), the Oklahoma Supreme Court similarly concluded: The essential purpose of the group home is to create a normal family atmosphere dissimilar from that found in traditional institutional care for the mentally handicapped. The operation of a group home is thus distinguishable from a use that is commerciali.e., a boarding house that provides food and lodging onlyor is institutional in character. See also Gregory v. State Dep't of Mental Health, Retardation & Hosps., 495 A.2d 997, 1001-02 (R.I.1985) (finding the group home to be residential and not commercial in nature, and listing cases from other jurisdictions reaching the same conclusion); Blevins v. Barry-Lawrence County Ass'n for Retarded Citizens, 707 S.W.2d 407, 408-09 (Mo. 1986) (en banc) (same, listing jurisdictions). But see Omega Corp. of Chesterfield v. Malloy, 228 Va. 12, 319 S.E.2d 728, 732 (1984) (finding group home for mentally disabled constituted a facility instead of a family residence in violation of covenant), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 1192, 105 S.Ct. 967, 83 L.Ed.2d 971 (1985). We agree with the conclusions reached by the South Carolina Supreme Court and other jurisdictions that the purpose of the group home is to provide the residents with a traditional family structure and atmosphere. Accordingly, we conclude as a matter of law that, given the undisputed facts regarding how the Community operates the group home and regarding the nature of the family life in the home, the home is used for residential purposes in compliance with the restrictive covenant.