Arizona HOA Says Orphan Can't Live With Grandparents

Community's minimum age is 19, lawyer says
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 16, 2020 8:22 AM CST
Arizona HOA Says Orphan Can't Live With Grandparents
The Gardens says it is "a gated 55 community" consisting of single-family homes.   (Getty Images/JohnnyH5)

A senior housing association in Arizona has given the grandparents of an orphaned 15-year-old boy a choice: Kick him out or move. Melodie Passmore tells NBC that her grandson, Collin Claubagh, has been living with her and her husband since Christmas 2018, shortly before his parents died. She says Collin's mother Bonnie died after a long illness in Feb. 2019. The boy's distraught father, her son Clay, took his own life just two weeks later. She says the Gardens at Willow Creek housing association in Prescott told her that they had received complaints about Collin living in her house. Most residents are 55 years or older and the minimum age is 19. Passmore has urged the association to let the boy stay "under special circumstances," but was recently informed that he would have to be out by June 30.

Passmore says Collin is a well-behaved teen, not "a little whiny kid running up and down the street screaming and causing trouble. This is a young man who helps his neighbors and is rarely seen outside of going to and from school," she says in a Facebook post. "Next time you want to rag on me remember to ask yourself if you have compassion and want to see him happy and living with people who love him or would you rather he be in foster care because some lawyers are trying to push his grandparents around and intimidate us." Jason Miller, an attorney for the housing association, said in a statement to the Arizona Republic that the board could face lawsuits if Collin is allowed to stay and it "must balance the interests of all parties involved." (More Arizona stories.)

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