If East Durham residents complain about somebody always dumping on them, it’s because somebody is, from landfills to the drug trade and just about everything else unwelcome and unpleasant.

Now comes an invasion of group homes, many of them not only unregulated but also of unknown provenance. In fact, city planners believe Durham has 210 or so group homes for ex-offenders of every stripe. Apparently nobody knows for sure, because group homes exist for the most part in a regulatory vacuum, appearing and disappearing with astonishing frequency.

If all, or even most, of these places were the equal of TROSA, the gold standard of group homes (in this case for substance abusers), East Durham residents who are trying to uplift the city’s most troubled neighborhoods might be more agreeable.

But they’re not, and who can blame them? After all, they don’t know who’s suddenly living next door to them and their kids when yet another a group home sprouts overnight.

It’s not that people with some measure of responsibility for what’s happening in East Durham are oblivious to the issue. It’s just that under state law, they’re short on regulatory chops.

As Ellen Holliman, director of Alliance Behaviorial Healthcare, told The Durham News’ Jim Wise, “We want our group homes to be part of the neighborhoods; we don’t want them to be the neighborhoods.”

If you’ve never heard of Alliance Behaviorial Healthcare, well, neither had I until I read Wise’s article. Turns out Alliance Behaviorial supervises disability and substance abuse services in Durham and Wake counties.

However, just how much supervision Alliance Behaviorial can exert over group homes seems to depend on one’s interpretation of state law and local ordinances. In that respect, some group homes are more equal than others. They’re the ones that play by the rules, or at least what they understand as rules.

Don’t take my word for it. City-County Planning Director Steve Medlin – now here’s a forthright public servant – will tell you that group homes stay off the radar unless someone files a complaint. Even then a resolution can be bollixed by ill-defined state and local regulations.

How bad is it? Since 2009, state law has required group-home operators to secure a letter of support from local oversight agencies such as Behavioral Alliance. The grand total of letters filed from Durham County: zero.

Ideally, group homes – no one disputes there’s a place for them on the continuum of care – should not be clustered like thistles the way they are in East Durham. But low housing costs and a certain insouciance toward the poorest section of the city combine to attract the lowest common denominator of group homes.

And things may get worse before they get better.

Thanks to a Justice Department lawsuit against the state, 3,000 or so North Carolina unfortunates who should remain institutionalized are moving into residential care. Some likely will end up in East Durham group homes.

If a revived East Durham is in the city’s future, it won’t be because of chock-a-block group homes. Few investors will put their money into neighborhoods they perceive as unacceptably risky.

Government is often and fairly criticized for being part of the problem, not the solution. If ever there was an opportunity to prove otherwise, this is it.