County closes group home

Stories of unsupervised mentally ill patients wreaking havoc in a northwest valley neighborhood prompted Clark County commissioners Tuesday to close a group home.

Citing years of complaints from neighbors, commissioners revoked Eagle Ridge Manor's business license and gave the owners 20 days to move the nine occupants to another home.

An attorney representing the owners said he will appeal the case in federal court.

The group home on Maverick Street, near Jones Boulevard and Cheyenne Avenue, has rankled neighbors who claim the patients fight, set fires and wander the streets.

Joyce Sportsman, a resident, said a woman from the home accosted her 14-year-old son when he was in the garage, touching and rubbing him, and making suggestive remarks.

"I don't understand what has to happen before this place gets shut down," Sportsman told the commission, sobbing. "I just want our neighborhood back."

Albert Silvestre owns the group home. His mother, Alegria DeVencie, is running it while he serves in the U.S. Navy. They receive $910 monthly per client.

Mark Braun, the group home's attorney, said the horror stories were either overblown or false. Eight of the home's nine clients are women, whose average age is 51, he said.

"It doesn't seem possible to me that middle-aged and geriatric women are out terrorizing the neighborhood," Braun said.

Braun said police were unable to identify any woman in the group home who matched the description of the person who approached the boy in the garage.

The group home is in good standing, he said, arguing that the state has never taken action against it.

However, a few commissioners said they were judging whether the group home was a nuisance, making its standing with the state irrelevant.

The task is to balance the housing needs of mentally ill patients with public safety, Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani said.

Neighbors found an ally in Assemblywoman Marilyn Kirkpatrick, D-North Las Vegas, who testified on their behalf.

"Good group homes, we need more of them," Kirkpatrick said, adding that bad ones should be shut down.

Reports show that fire and rescue teams visited the house 372 times in 2006, and police came 70 times that year, Kirkpatrick said.

However, Braun said police and rescue teams showed up a total of 12 times in a year.

He called group-home officials to testify how clients with less severe mental illnesses have a right to come and go, unsupervised.

DeVencie said she feels people are persecuting her and her clients. She talked of how neighbors hover about with cameras, taking pictures of anyone stepping out the door.

"Where is the right of the client?" she said. "I'm feeling abused."

Karen Butta, who lives next to the group home, said the house has been troublesome since it opened in the late 1990s.

She told of how a woman invaded her house when her young daughters were home alone and baked cookies. The girls hid upstairs while the woman banged around in the kitchen, Butta said.

After the commissioners voted to pull the group home's license, Butta and Sportsman hugged outside the meeting room and cried.

"This has been a long time coming," Butta said. "It's been a nine-year nightmare."

But Braun, the attorney, said the legal battle isn't over.

"They didn't produce any substantial evidence to these wild allegations," Braun said.

Contact reporter Scott Wyland at swyland@reviewjournal.com or (702) 455-4519.