Bursting myth bubble on neighborhood mental hospital

This is to rebut the My Turn column titled “Beware for-profit mental hospitals.”

Obviously, the writer is trying to instill fear in people about what he does not have any knowledge of, nor has he checked any facts.

He has made up false stories and spread them by use of the neighborhood watch as well as calling meetings to circulate these allegations about our home. He and his cronies are calling the captains saying that they, the captains, need to “call their people” to complain about us. This has caused us to live with hate from several neighbors who have never met us; they just believe what was told to them.

One instance: I was walking one day and saw a neighbor outside so I went to say “Hello” and introduce myself. She said, “I know who you are, and we despise you.” She continued with her verbal attack, then her last statement was, “We’re coming after you.” Her threat made me uncertain about our safety.

We have had constant harassment by people calling the building department, health and welfare and the road department against us but with no benefit to them since we are completely legal in all we are doing. The letter writer also called our Realtor, yelling at her, stating, “How could you sell that house to those people?”

One of the many stories being told to our neighbors is that we have seven people living here and we are adding on so that we can have 12. That is not the case. We are currently adding on a garage.

He speaks of two other homes in the area. Those I cannot answer for, but at least for this home I will.

My husband and I moved into his neighborhood a little over a year and a half ago. We have been a Certified Family Home for several years. We care for elderly and intellectually delayed people who need help with day-to-day living. We are currently caring for three wonderful, kind, gentle, American citizens. The maximum by law is four. They all have the right to live in a family home, take walks and sit in chairs in their yards just as Mr. Murphy does. No one here is an inmate. We are not a hospital. They are not locked up, so they cannot escape.

We do have many neighbors on our street who are fantastic, and we dearly love them. But hopefully this letter will help ease the fears of anyone in our neighborhood who does not know us and has heard such untrue accusations against our home.

We are praying for a peaceful resolution with any of our neighbors who have been misinformed about who we are. We would like to have a big neighborhood barbecue this coming spring where we can meet all the neighbors, many of whom we have not yet had the privilege to get to know.

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J. Divine is a Hayden resident.