Penza, 30 August 2017. PenzaNews. Residents of private houses located in the Veselovka neighbourhood of Penza – not far away from the boarding house for young people with disabilities "House of Veronika" – are hostile to the project as a whole and to its participants in particular. This was reported by the director of the centre for wheelchair-bound people "Kvartal Louis", chairman of “Blagovest” public organization, member of the Public Chamber of Russia Maria Lvova-Belova.

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"Local people do not really like us. We have different issues from time to time. It is a kind of mentality. They say: ‘We do not want our children to look at the freaks’. This is broadcasted on TV, on ‘11 Kanal’ for example," she explained during journalists' visit to "House of Veronika" on Wednesday, August 30.

Maria Lvova-Belova added that the residents complained about the boarding house and that most of the complaints were groundless relating mainly to the fact that people with disabilities lived next to healthy people.

"We wanted to build a hen coop for the children, so that they could devote themselves to something, so that the chicken lived there and we could see fruit of their work. We received a call and it was said: ‘Do not do this, otherwise you will be tormented with inspections.’ Local people are hostile to us," the member of the Public Chamber of Russia noted.

According to her, residents of Veselovka took the arrival of people with severe disabilities in the neighbourhood negatively since the day of the boarding house opening, when they took journalists aside and expressed their fears that the disabled were going to be exploited.