When Mary Helen Beaticato saw a “for rent” sign outside a six-unit apartment building on Santa Ana Avenue in Costa Mesa, she knew she had found the perfect place.
She and her then business partner, Dr. Gerardo Grosso, co-founder of Insight Psychology & Addiction (doing business as Nsight), worked with up to 30 adult clients in recovery from addiction ( They were looking for a property to house people (many of whom had mental health issues). Families living traditional, modest lives are not receiving adequate treatment.
Since the building had just been renovated, the pair started taking customers in by early 2015. By then, Beaticato said, the business model had shifted away from addiction treatment as a huge need for mental health housing began to surface.
“We were putting them on a sober lifestyle, but they were getting primary mental health evaluations,” she recalled Wednesday. “And those who live modestly, [facilities] Certain medications are controlled substances and should not be given to them, but the client needs those controlled substances to function. “That’s where we started. Why not solve our own problems and start providing housing?”
NSight Psychology and Addiction Group Home Apartments in Costa Mesa. The facility has been at the center of a years-long legal battle with the city, which recently resulted in a ruling in favor of the federal government.
(Don Leach/Staff Photographer)
Residents diagnosed with PTSD, major depressive disorder, and anxiety disorders, even those without addiction issues, currently have approximately They are forced to stay for 45 to 90 days.
When the site first opened, Costa Mesa had just passed a law regulating group homes in areas zoned for single-family use, but there were no such restrictions for multifamily zoning.
When city leaders adopted an ordinance in November 2015 that required group home operators to obtain conditional use permits and stipulated that facilities could not be located within 650 feet of each other, all has changed.
Beatificato said he learned of the new law a few months later when city officials informed him he needed to get a permit to use Nsight. She drafted the documents in October 2016 and waited.
Over the next two years, other sober living facilities opened near University Drive in unincorporated Orange County outside city limits. Real estate records show transactions in November 2015 and October 2017.
The map shows the proximity of Nsight facilities, centers, and other state-approved group homes. However, these facilities exist outside the city limits of Costa Mesa, which runs along Santa Ana Boulevard.
(Courtesy of Costa Mesa City)
Four addiction treatment businesses on three properties have moved within 650 feet of Beatificato’s Mental Health Treatment Center. Soon, I received a call with bad news from the city’s development director.
“[She] “Hey, I just learned that there is another facility in this unincorporated area.” My recommendation is to deny this CUP unless you can get a reasonable accommodation. ’ So I did it right away,” Beatificato recalled.
When Nsight management sought a waiver from the 650-foot separation requirement, they noted that the facility had been in operation since before the law was passed, and that other outdoor facilities had opened while awaiting administrative approval. In view of this, the request was denied.
The NSight Psychology & Addiction facility on Santa Ana Avenue in Costa Mesa provides mental health transitional housing for up to 30 adults in six units.
(Don Leach/Staff Photographer)
Appeals to the Planning Commission and City Council were similarly denied. Officials recognized the growing problem with the proliferation of sober living homes and openly doubted Nsight’s claims that the facilities were no longer focused on substance abuse.
Ms. Beatificato, a qualified lawyer, recognized that her only chance of relief was a court judgment. In March 2020, Nsight filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court that said the city’s refusal violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and other federal and state housing laws by denying housing to people with mental disabilities. filed a complaint alleging
Alisha Patterson of the Irvine law firm Rutan & Tucker, who represents Nsight, said the city consistently considers all residential facilities to be group homes, without distinguishing between specialties or clientele. Stated.
“They looked at the total number of group homes and said we can’t do any more. It doesn’t matter if you’re the only group home of your type,” she said Thursday. “They tried to imply in the lawsuit that if we close you down, there are plenty of other group homes out there. You can not.”
Costa Mesa lawyers argue that reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities are necessary only to create rights equivalent to those already enjoyed by people without disabilities.
“Because the R1-12 zone ‘does not have comparable housing opportunities to persons without disabilities,’ no reasonable accommodation was necessary ‘to achieve equality of opportunity in any sense,’” they wrote in 2020. he wrote in June, arguing that consideration was sufficient. This corresponds to preferential treatment.
After years of legal back and forth and judicial reassignment, the parties asked U.S. District Court Judge Maam Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong to rule on several undisputed facts. requested.
The city asked that one of the civil rights claims apply to businesses rather than local governments. Frimpong agreed in a March 20 summary judgment ruling.
“I feel vindicated.”
— Mary Helen Beatificato, CEO, NSight Psychology & Addiction
The ruling also upheld Nsight’s request for a reasonable accommodation from the city’s segregation requirements, citing the fact that no similar housing exists in Orange County.
“No it [Nsight’s] In residential settings, residents are significantly more likely to experience regression of symptoms after leaving institutional care and end up re-admitted to the hospital, or worse,” Frimpong wrote. . “The city has refused to provide evidence of the dispute.” [Nsight’s] Evidence that the request for accommodation is reasonable and necessary. Therefore, it fails to generate genuine questions of material fact. ”
Beatico, who estimates he has spent more than $1 million and countless hours on the case, said he was thrilled to read the ruling.
“I feel vindicated,” she said Wednesday.
Other elements of the case will continue to be processed through the federal court system and could potentially lead to a jury trial. Beatificato hopes officials will amend the ordinance to create more mental health housing.
However, the city’s Atty, Kimberly Hall Barlow, supported the city’s austere living laws.
“The city has won in court every time it defended the ordinance,” she said in a statement Thursday. “Jurors have voted loudly in favor of city ordinances in multiple cases, and the Court of Appeals has affirmed one of those results, and we expect this result to be no different.” Masu.”
The parties are scheduled to confer next week ahead of a June 27 settlement conference.
