Editorial

So far, we haven't heard any opposition to plans to locate a five-person group home for mental patients in Corvallis, but it's early yet.

Shangri-La Inc., the Salem-based nonprofit that hopes to open the facility here, says the group home would serve people who have been civilly committed. It would not house so-called "forensic patients" - that is, people who have been found guilty of a crime except for insanity.

Last year, Shangri-La's proposal to open a facility for forensic patients in Albany sparked an outcry from residents there. Eventually, the company had to change its plans and it opened a facility for noncriminal patients, similar to what is planned in Corvallis.

Shangri-La says it hasn't yet found a location for its house in Corvallis. But it's only natural to assume that when that location is announced, neighbors might have some concerns about the facility. Shangri-La and Benton County Mental Health have pledged to work closely with those neighbors to build open communication and friendly relations. We should hold them to that pledge.

But if push comes to shove, neighbors might find they don't have much ability to stop the group home: The Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination against people with mental illnesses. And because the home would be limited to five residents, it wouldn't come under any local zoning restrictions.

Let's hope, though, that the process goes smoothly: The community-based approach represented by the group home is an important tool in how we treat people suffering from mental illness. The alternative approach, of course, is to warehouse the mentally ill in institutions. In Oregon, that's often meant confining patients in the 120-year-old State Hospital in Salem, and a recent report from the U.S. Justice Department documented decades of substandard conditions and civil-rights violations there.

The Legislature has allocated money for two new state hospitals, and those are scheduled to be ready by 2013. But most of Oregon's mentally ill likely will do better in community settings that put them, in some cases, closer to their homes and their loved ones.

And, really, this is better for their communities as well. One of the ways in which we measure our progress as a civilization is how we care for those who are less fortunate. Surely we can welcome to this community a handful of people trying to find a place where they can rebuild their lives.