92-Year-Old Institution Closes in Tenn.

On Nov. 19, the last six residents were moved from Clover Bottom, ending an era of institutionalizing people with low IQs or other intellectual disabilities away from their communities, a practice that in recent years had come with a huge price tag for taxpayers - about half a million dollars per resident per year.

Like many states, Tennessee has moved slowly in the direction of closing its institutions. Clover Bottom was originally scheduled to be closed in 2005.

Its former residents -- many elderly and in poor health -- have been moved into small homes run by the state or by private subcontractors.

Editorial: Wake Up California!

It’s shameful that California’s elected leaders have let 2015 go by without taking care of our most vulnerable fellow citizens. We must not allow that to happen again in 2016.

Those with developmental disabilities deserved an increase in funding for the services they receive through the state. They, through the Lanterman Coalition, pleaded for an immediate 10 percent funding hike this year to end the slide in services, followed by a restructuring of the funding system to make it sustainable.

The money was and is there. State coffers are awash in revenue. But state leaders are ignoring the need.

Autism Speaks Shifts Focus to Adults

After prioritizing the needs of children for years, the nation’s largest autism advocacy organization is turning its attention to expanding housing options and supports for adults.

Starting as a pilot project in three states — Florida, New Jersey and Illinois — Autism Speaks is working with locally-based disability advocacy groups and policymakers to identify legislative goals and mobilize its own network to push for expanded home and community-based services.

Minnesota Accelerates Plan for Deinstutionalization

Lt. Gov. Yvonne Prettner Solon will unveil a detailed plan Thursday designed to end the unnecessary segregation of people with disabilities by dramatically expanding Minnesota’s range of community and home-based treatment options. Crafted by eight state agencies, the plan calls for transitioning thousands of people housed in state-run mental hospitals, nursing homes and other institutions to settings, such as Vail Place, that are less restrictive and more focused on integrating them into the community.

The wide-ranging proposal, developed in part because of a federal lawsuit, would accelerate the controversial deinstitutionalization of mentally ill and disabled persons that began in Minnesota in the 1970s, while altering the way state agencies deliver care for vulnerable populations.

N.J. Prepares for More Group Homes

Kelly is the very embodiment of one of the biggest issues confronting New Jersey as it revolutionizes the way it cares for the state’s most vulnerable residents.

Christiana Sarfo of Arc of Morris County
 lifting resident Kelly from her bed
 at a Parsippany group home

But she doesn’t know anything about that. Like her five housemates at a group home run by the Arc of Morris County, she suffers from a range of severe physical and intellectual disabilities.

Your first impression when you walk into her room is that the occupant is a small child.

Panel Urges N.J. to Expand Community Services

TRENTON, N.J. -- Trenton should spend all of the mon­ey it saves shutting down state institutions for the disabled in Totowa and Wood­bridge on building up a community-based replacement system of housing and care, according to the state task force that rec­ommended the closures.
But the governor’s office stopped short of making that commitment. In a state­ment Friday, a spokesman for Governor Christie said only that the administration will continue to make “significant invest­ments” in community services for the de­velopmentally disabled.

Medicaid Waiver Would Increase Community-Based Services in New Jersey

New Jersey’s application for a Medicaid waiver would change the way federal money is administered for people with developmental disabilities, allowing many to stay out of institutions by receiving more community-based support services.
If approved, the state is proposing to spend $90 million a year on support that includes day programs for the disabled as an alternative to living in one of the state's seven developmental centers.

R.I. House Adds $9.6 Million to Budget for Services

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Rhode Islanders with developmental disabilities would see funding for state programs and services they receive increased by about $9.6 million in the budget year that begins July 1, under a spending plan presented by the House Finance Committee Thursday night.
That $9.6 million includes some $4.7 million in state funding and a corresponding match of federal monies.
It comes a year after lawmakers voted to slash their funding by some $24 million.

Editorial: Community Care First

CHICAGO -- Three months ago, Gov. Pat Quinn unveiled a budget that made the tough choice to shut down a handful of government-run facilities around the state. He did it for good reason.
The facilities, including prisons and centers for the developmentally disabled, are unneeded and hugely expensive. The services they provide can be done much more efficiently, and their high cost puts a squeeze on funding available for other social services.
Now we're coming down to the final decisions in Springfield on state spending for the next fiscal year. The closing of the facilities are a bargaining chip.

N.J. Moves Toward More Community Homes

Paul Salavatore with state Human
Services Commissioner Jennifer
Velez in Closter on Tuesday. Salavatore
lives in a group home in Haworth.

CLOSTER — At least 16 New Jersey municipalities have committed to using affordable housing trust funds to provide supported homes for adults with developmental disabilities, Human Services Commissioner Jennifer Velez said Tuesday.
Combined with state matching funds, the money is expected to help open at least a couple dozen community homes for the disabled, each of which would house several people with disabilities ranging from severe intellectual disabilities to cerebral palsy and autism.

Studies Show Community Care Is Viable

Case studies across the country have shown that residents of institutions can be successfully moved into smaller settings in the community in most states, according to a court brief filed last week on behalf of national and international academic and advocacy organizations. They include American Association of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities and the Association of University Centers on Disabilities.

Editorial: Fast Track Reform for Services

MINNEAPOLIS -- An object lesson for would-be reformers of state government's Big Hurt -- health care spending for the chronically ill and disabled -- was administered this year.
The lesson: Even when both partisan sides at the State Capitol agree on a goal for serving people better while spending less, achieving that goal isn't quick or easy. And cutting health care spending while working on systemic change can make the reform task more difficult -- and more urgent at the same time.

Farewell to a Place Once Called Home

WEST SENECA, N.Y. -- The long hallways where Wendy Orzel remembers hiding as a child are empty.
The lobby, once bustling with visiting families and ringing pay phones, is quiet.
But the memories of growing up among hundreds of other children and adults at the West Seneca Developmental Center flooded back Tuesday as Orzel returned to say goodbye.
"It's bittersweet," said Orzel, now 51, married and living in Albany. "I can't go, 'yeah, yeah, yeah, it's closed,' because they're like family. It's like family."

Illinois Legislators Question Institutions

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. -- Three state representatives Wednesday night assured advocates for people with disabilities their voices will be heard if they speak in unison about the need to close more of the state’s eight institutional housing facilities for people with disabilities.
And advocates say they’re ready to band together and contact legislators about the benefits they say the state could realize if more institutions are closed.

Opinion: Finding Funding Is Critical

Guest column from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch by Wendy Sullivan, the president of Life Skills. For more than 30 years, she has advocated for adults with developmental disabilities. She serves on St. Louis' Office of the Disabled Advisory Council.

ST. LOUIS, Mo. -- Cody is a smart and caring 19-year-old man with severe autism, chronic migraine headaches and seizures. Because Cody cannot communicate orally, he can make his needs known only through action. Sometimes out of frustration, he acts violently toward those around him.
Life Skills was able to place Cody in a home in the community with around-the-clock staff. It is essential that the staff is specially trained to manage Cody's behavior and medical needs. Without the recent restoration of the 1.9 percent state funding cut for services for people with developmental disabilities, it is doubtful that Life Skills could continue to provide the training needed for the staff working with Cody.

Editorial: Virginia Needs Reform Now

Virginia ranks in the gutter among states for Medicaid services provided to individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities, formerly characterized as mental retardation. They include those with a range of disabilities, including Down syndrome, cerebral palsy and autism. Medicaid, a federal-state partnership, provides funding for people who are eligible for long-term care in institutions; Medicaid waivers allow payment for community-based services, such as group homes, supported employment and day activities.
The shortfall in waivers has to change — and sooner, rather than later. The U.S. Department of Justice made that clear in February when it lambasted the state for its policy of institutionalizing the intellectually disabled instead of providing community care.

R.I. Protesters Decry Proposed Budget Cuts

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — They came on foot and, in some cases, in wheelchairs, gathering more than 250 strong at the State House on Thursday to protest budget cuts they say will hurt one of Rhode Island’s most vulnerable populations — people with developmental disabilities.
"My son Patrick is multi-handicapped and lives in a group home in Middletown," Cynthia Feighan, one of about a half-dozen speakers, told the crowd that gathered in the State House rotunda. "He needs help getting dressed, going to the bathroom. Someone needs to prepare his meals and help him eat his meals. He needs help getting into bed, getting out of bed, turning on a radio, turning it off."
But with the House of Representatives poised to vote Friday on a budget that would cut spending for developmental disability services by about $24 million, according to figures from the advocates, Feighan and others wonder what will happen to their loved ones.

Closing of Georgia Facility Delayed Due to Lack of Community-Based Services

The deadline to close a state psychiatric hospital in Rome has been pushed back amid advocates’ concerns that community services for mentally ill and developmentally disabled individuals wouldn't be ready in time.
Tentatively slated to close June 30, Northwest Georgia Regional Hospital will remain open until at least Sept. 30, as the state continues to roll out new community services in North Georgia, including crisis stabilization units for the mentally ill.
The effort is part of a larger $70 million-plus push to move mentally ill and developmentally disabled people out of institutions and into the community as part of an agreement reached last fall between the state and the U.S. Department of Justice.

Before Angry Crowd, N.J. Health Services Official Says Vineland Center Will Close

VINELAND, N.J. — State Department of Human Services Commissioner Jennifer Velez defended the proposed closing of the Vineland Developmental Center on Tuesday, testifying before a hostile crowd at a public hearing on the issue.
Velez had to stop her testimony a few times as people in the crowd booed her, made catcalls and sometimes shouted "liar."

Official: Virginia-DOJ Agreement Possible

These are human lives we are talking about! How can states put a dollar value on providing a quality life for individuals with disabilities who have been warehoused and isolated? I recognize states are strapped for cash and tax payers are struggling. Hopefully an agreement can be struck.

RICHMOND, Va. — Virginia's top health official said Monday he thinks the state can reach an agreement with the Department of Justice over civil rights violations at homes for the mentally and physically disabled by the summer and begin making changes by the fall.
The Department of Justice threatened to sue in February because it said Virginia violates federal law by needlessly warehousing the intellectually and severely disabled and failing to provide adequate treatment in the community.