Good Neighbor Initiative

About the Program

Category: Civic Education and Public Information (Best in Category)

Year: 2014

The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors (BOS) Housing Committee endorsed the Good Neighbor Initiative in October 2011 as part of a broad effort to establish and maintain good relationships among group home residents (and staff) and their neighbors, to prevent misunderstandings, and to enhance community acceptance of new homes. The Fairfax-Falls Church Community Services Board (CSB) led the initiative’s implementation, which included: 1) identifying practices homeowners and residential providers agree are essential to being a “good neighbor;” 2) developing a written agreement that publicly affirms residential providers’ desire to be good neighbors and to live in a community of good neighbors; 3) proactively informing the community about residential providers that make this commitment; 4) holding residential providers to this commitment in their contractual relationships where possible; 5) serving as a single point of contact for citizen concerns; and 6) providing “good neighbor” training and technical assistance to less experienced residential providers. A year after the Good Neighbor campaign began in April 2012, twelve CSB residential contractors (90%) and nine non-contractual affordable housing and residential provider organizations signed the Good Neighbor Agreement. Currently, 26 organizations have taken the pledge. This year, the BOS and the CSB have utilized the Agreement as a tool to successfully address several neighborhood issues with residential programs in the community. Community-based residential programs are critically needed to accommodate Fairfax County citizens with disabilities who are on long waitlists for community housing, face barriers to discharge from state psychiatric facilities, or are leaving state training centers as a result of the legal settlement between the Commonwealth of Virginia and the U.S. Department of Justice. As public awareness of group homes as good neighbors improves, so does acceptance of those who live and work in the homes. This is where the real “increase in home values” occurs.