The dream came true 16 years ago, when Priscilla and John Hinckley and their children moved to the 500 block of East Chestnut. These days, however, the Chester County neighborhood isn't what it used to be.
"Look at the paint chipping off, and look at those plain, institutional doors they've put on," Hinckley complained one recent afternoon, strolling along East Chestnut and nodding at the once-elegant, turn-of-the-century homes she had admired as a teenager.
At least five homes on the block have become boarding houses in the last several years, occupied mostly by discharged mental patients, and the Hinckleys are just one of many families up in arms.
Reacting to complaints, the City Council last month gave initial approval to an ordinance that would limit the opening of such houses in the future, although officials said they could do nothing about existing ones.
Frustrated neighbors, meanwhile, said some boarders, many of them elderly, have stolen laundry off clotheslines, made lewd comments to women on the street and harassed children on their way to school.
Four of the five boarding houses near the Hinckley residence are owned by members of the same family - Regina, Faisel and Adel Madanat - all licensed by the state Department of Public Welfare and Chester County Services for Senior Citizens. The Madanats said neighbors were too quick to blame boarding-house occupants for problems on the block.
"There are other people living on the street who don't live in boarding houses," Adel Madanat said. "There are people living alone in apartments. The people in the boarding houses know better than to bother people."
Police Chief Dennis Alexander said the behavior of boarders had improved, but "four or five years ago, when these places first started opening, we were getting called down there all the time."
