Editorial: Assisted living centers deserve a home, too

As the Sun's Adrienne Packer reported Thursday, nearly everyone agrees that senior citizens should be afforded comfortable accommodations when they can't live on their own anymore. But ask people whether assisted living centers should be placed in residential areas, and many will say that while they welcome assisted living centers, they don't belong in their back yard.

So the Clark County Commission has been denying requests to place assisted living centers in residential areas because of opposition by neighbors who believe they aren't compatible. Instead these new centers, in which seniors need some assistance but are still independent, are unfairly relegated to commercial areas.

But these centers belong in residential areas. In the same way that government wouldn't put a house in the middle of an industrial zone, senior citizens in assisted living centers shouldn't have to live in commercial districts.

The planning group's work is expected to be completed in a couple of months and presented to the County Commission. Because the area's senior population is growing, the need for assisted living centers will become even more important. The bottom line is that a plan should be devised that allows for the placement of these centers in residential areas, acknowledging that they be architecturally consistent with the neighborhoods they would call home.

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