Newlyweds With Disabilities Find Home To Share

RIVERHEAD, N.Y. — It was moving day Monday for a newlywed mentally disabled couple who launched a court fight to be able to live together.

Paul Forziano and his wife, Hava, who fell in love seven years ago and were married in April, welcomed visitors including their parents, attorneys and reporters into their new second-floor apartment in a large house run by an agency that operates several group homes in Riverhead, on eastern Long Island.

"Happy, not sad," said Hava Forziano, who has limited verbal skills. "We can be together all the time now," added her husband.

The couple and their parents filed a civil rights lawsuit this year, seeking to compel the group homes where they had lived separately until Monday to accommodate their wishes to live together as a married couple. Although the newlyweds were able to find a place to live, their attorney said Monday that the court fight will go on.

"You don't know what's going to happen in the future," said attorney Martin Coleman. "People like Paul and Hava have to have the ability to move around if they want to. There's only a limited number of providers. We need to be sure they're not closed out of places."

The federal civil rights lawsuit contends Paul Forziano's facility refused to allow the couple to live together because people requiring the services of a group home are by definition incapable of living as married people, and it says his wife's home refused because it believes she doesn't have the mental capacity to consent to sex.

Legal experts are watching the case closely as a test of the Americans With Disabilities Act, which says, in part, that "a public entity shall make reasonable modifications in policies, practices, or procedures ... to avoid discrimination on the basis of disability." The group homes are licensed as nonprofits by the state and receive Medicaid funding on behalf of their clients.

The facility where the former Hava Samuels lived has declined to comment because of the pending litigation. The group home operators where Paul Forziano lived said they didn't have facilities available for a married couple.

Also named in the lawsuit is the state Office of Persons With Developmental Disabilities, which the couple claims sided with the agencies in refusing to accommodate their wishes and has not done enough to find a solution. The office has declined to comment.