Legal experts side with foster family

They contend a Pasco couple have a right to raise foster kids in a deed-restricted neighborhood.

By CARY DAVIS and RYAN DAVIS
© St. Petersburg Times
published October 9, 2002

PORT RICHEY -- A range of legal experts lined up Tuesday to support the Gourlay family's right to raise foster children in a deed restricted neighborhood.

The courts, the experts said, have traditionally sided with foster parents in housing disputes.

"I think the foster family wins pretty easily in this case," said Steven Mezer, a Tampa attorney who specializes in helping homeowners associations enforce deed restrictions.

The Forest Lake Estates civic association filed suit against the family on Monday, alleging that Steven and Corinna Gourlay, by accepting state funding for foster care, were not using their home "exclusively for residential purposes." The lawsuit also argues that foster children are not covered by the definition of a "single family." But a federal appeals court in Chicago, ruling in a 1991 case, specifically included foster children under the definition of "familial status."

"There is a general agreement in the courts that foster children are part of a family," said Joe Little, a constitutional law professor at the University of Florida. "My guess is that the (civic association's) lawsuit is going to run into trouble."

The civic association is asking a judge to determine whether Forest Lake Estates' deed restrictions permit the Gourlays to take in foster children. No hearing date has been set.

The case has generated widespread interest.

Randall Marshall, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, said the Gourlays are protected under the federal Fair Housing Act.

"The action by the civic association is reminiscent of the kinds of attitudes that brought about the Fair Housing Act," said Marshall, adding that the ACLU is interested in taking the Gourlays' case.

Association attorney Donald Peyton, who lives in Forest Lake Estates, declined to discuss the merits of the lawsuit on Tuesday.

Walt Lucas, the neighborhood association vice president who has led the push to file a lawsuit, declined to comment on Tuesday.

The Gourlays care for five foster children, ages 3 to 14, in their 1,700-square-foot house. They also have four children of their own. The state pays the Gourlays $2,028 a month to cover expenses for the foster children. Steven Gourlay makes $40,000 a year driving a grocery truck. His wife stays home with the children.

Richard Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform in Alexandria, Va., said of the lawsuit: "I've really never encountered anything so unbelievably selfish anywhere in the country. It's certainly another black eye for Florida. . . .

"Nobody among those trying to throw (the Gourlays) out ought to ever have the gall to say a word about problems with child welfare. They are part of the problem."

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