Up Against the Law: Legal Structuring of Political Opportunities in Neighborhood Opposition to Group Home Siting in Massachusetts

Abstract

Conflicts over siting of group homes for people transitioning out of homelessness or struggling with addiction illustrate the multiscalar dynamics at play between locally-based activism and supra-local laws. In Massachusetts, the state-scale legal environment limits the effectiveness of opposition to group housing; nonetheless, such opposition occurs at the municipal level. Drawing on media accounts, official documents, and interviews with stakeholders in conflicts over group home siting in Worcester, Massachusetts, I investigate the dynamics between neighborhood place claims, the responses of the local state, and the state-wide laws governing group home siting. Examining the legal frameworks relevant to social movement grievances demonstrate that law structures the political opportunities available for protest and local government response.

Key words:

• law
• health geography
• urban politics
• political opportunity
• activism.

Notes

1 For a more thorough discussion of lawyering and its relevance to geography and analyses of contention, please see Martin et al. (2010).

2 The shelter eliminated its open-door policy in fall 2009 and moved to a system of triage screening; it is too soon to measure the results of this effort (Hammel, 2009). This new system relies on a continued supply of individual sites for housing placements, including treatment group homes such as the ones that are the focus of this study.