"A shame to remember”: the unfulfilled threats of living next to people with disabilities

Abstract

The development of a network of group homes for adults with disabilities in Lithuania, which started in 2014 as one of the measures for the deinstitutionalisation of people with intellectual and psychosocial disabilities, has been met with strong opposition from neighbours and communities in some regions. This dissatisfaction was widely reported in the media and was another occasion for the dissemination of negative disability-related attitudes that stem from stigmas associated with psychosocial and intellectual disabilities. Ten years after the beginning of the reform, this article aims to reconstruct, from media sources retrospectively, the main fears and threat scenarios related to the neighbourhoods of people with disabilities, and to test, through an empirical study, whether these fears were confirmed. The study uses quantitative and qualitative methods of media content analysis and empirical research based on different sources: a questionnaire survey of representatives of the group homes, standardised group interviews of police officers working in specific neighbourhoods, and standardised individual telephone interviews of elected community representatives. The results of the media content analysis showed that in Lithuania, some communities experienced the classic threat scenarios associated with the development of group homes (fears of increased insecurity, unpleasant neighbourhoods, and negative impact on real estate) before the group homes were established. The empirical study showed that the threats have not materialised in the communities since the introduction of group homes and that hostility towards group homes is no longer observed. Group home residents have not committed any crimes against the community; there is no evidence of a decline in property values, nor has there been any negative impact on the neighbourhood’s attractiveness. On the contrary, the relationship between group home residents and neighbours is rated as good and very good in most communities.