A nonprofit serving women who've been trafficked and exploited says the county’s denial to grant them a zoning variance is discrimination.
Soujourn House wants a zoning variance for a house it bought in December on Monroe County’s east side.
Soujourn House president Carissa Muncie said they substantially changed their amended application from the original submitted in March.
“We amended the petition amended the request to make sure that we had a legal notarized written commitment to the fact that we would limit it to eight women living in the house,” Muncie said.
Sojourn also got legal representation for the amended application to support that denying the zoning variance was a Fair Housing Act violation.
Several residents spoke against the zoning variance saying the house is inappropriate for a group home for women.
“When you start talking about, oh, these kinds of people are going to bring down my property values or these kinds of people aren't fit to live in this kind of setting. You're making judgment calls,” Muncie said.
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Muncie said because of the delay, they’ve lost contact with some of the women on the wait list to move into the house.
She says very little area in the county is zoned for a group home, and only one to five percent of Monroe County properties are available to the nonprofit.
