August 20, 2011
Natick condo residents upset with state mental health placements
By: Ian B. Murphy, Daily News staff
NATICK β Condominium owners at the Admiral Dewey House on East Central Street are upset they weren’t told that a nonprofit organization would buy two units for the state Department of Mental Health to house people with mental illness.
The residents say the condo sellers lied to them about who was buying their properties, and neither Cascap Inc., the Cambridge nonprofit that bought the condos with state money, nor the Department of Mental Health has contacted the community association to explain the process or assuage fears.
“We’ve never been advised or involved in the process, except for voicing our concerns,” Michael McMahon said. “There was never an outreach to the community. None of us want to come across as ignorant, or superstitious, or prejudiced, but if your direct neighbors are Department of Mental Health placements, there are any number of concerns that go through your mind. Whether they’re valid or invalid, you would think that the organizations who did this would want to address those.”
The sales are legal, private transactions, and irreversible.
Cascap CEO Michael Haran said the nonprofit was contracted to purchase 10 units for the Department of Mental Health with money from the sale of the former Metropolitan State Hospital property in Waltham. Cascap bid on a grant from the Community Economic Development Assistance Corporation, a state-funded real estate finance company to own and manage the properties for state clients. The nonprofit also bought condos in Arlington, Belmont, Newton and Watertown.
The condos in the Admiral Dewey House met the state’s criteria for proximity to transportation and shopping, and handicapped accessibility, Haran said. He said he wishes the concerned residents would have contacted Cascap directly with their concerns, not the Board of Selectmen.
“These are not owned by the Department of Mental Health. They’re owned by us,” Haran said. “I guess you could get into splitting hairs here and semantics, but we’re the owners. It wasn’t set up this way to hide or get around anything, but this is how the trust was set up.”
McMahon said he recognizes that the purchases were legal but doesn’t think they’re a private sale.
“It’s state-funded, and it’s for the strict, deeded use of a state agency’s clients, the Department of Mental Health, so to say it’s a private purchase that the state has no oversight in is disingenuous,” he said. “It just strikes us as removing the responsibility of the purchase out of the state when they’re the funder and the user.”
By purchasing the two condos, Cascap owns 9.28 percent of the building, more than any other owner. Haran said the nonprofit, which also owns and manages condos for elders and people with disabilities in Cambridge, said it will do background checks on the people the state recommends for the condos.
“If we run a (criminal background check), and we have real concerns or questions, we will reject them. It’s not the situation where we’re listed as the owner, but we’re just going to hand over the keys to the Department of Mental Health.”
Haran said Cascap is not informed about the mental health status of any of the potential residents because that would be illegal.
The Daily News’ request for an interview with the state department was not granted.
McMahon said he is concerned about being able to sell his condo in the future.
“Every direct wall I share with a person now is a Department of Mental Health placement,” McMahon said. “How does that impact my home value? The state is now the largest single owner in the building. What does that mean on how they view maintenance issues, or property value issues? If you think that somebody who is purchasing a unit doesn’t take that into their acquisition decision, their purchase of a property, then you’re crazy.”
Cindy Kassanos, another resident, said she’s most concerned with how much Cascap overpaid.
“I was kind of appalled that they used state funds to pay so high above market value,” Kassanos said.
Cascap purchased one condo for $240,000 and another for $235,000. Those units were assessed in fiscal 2011 for $219,700 and $211,200, respectively.
The Warren Group, a real estate data firm, reported that the most recent sale in the building was in January for $225,000, about $7,000 above its assessed value.
Haran said Cascap had the units appraised and went through a real estate broker.
“We’d make an offer on the unit subject to the appraisal,” Haran said. “One of the reasons we had a broker was to take advantage of their sense of the market.”
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