Furious Seasons

September 08, 2009

NY State Discriminated Against Mentally Ill In Adult Homes

A federal judge today ruled that the State of New York discriminated against the mentally ill by forcing them to live in crappy adult group homes--in effect, little more than replacements for shuttered state psych hospitals--when the state could've paid for them to live in apartments and likely would've saved money in the deal. The judge ordered the state to submit a remedial plan to fix this mess.

And quite a mess it is. Some of the homes house hundreds of people and are rundown and unsafe, and staffed by incompetent people, in some cases. That's what a NY Times series found back in 2002. I'd strongly recommend taking a look at it.

These kinds of adult homes are present all over the country and they've essentially become the new form of long-term institutionalization. Although most states regulate the homes, in my experience I cannot tell where regulations have helped patients. I visited one in Seattle several years ago and within about 30 seconds I could tell I was in a fire trap. It's since been torn down and replaced by expensive town homes, but not because of a state inspection but because the agency that owned the property could make a ton of money selling to a developer. I have no idea what they did with the proceeds.

Posted by Philip Dawdy at September 8, 2009 01:59 PM

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From pages 28 and 29 of the court decision:

"Because Adult Homes almost always hold residents' Medicaid cards, residents generally see the providers selected by the Adult Homes -- many of which have a financial interest in controlling who provides medical care to residents -- and residents must ask permission to access community-based care" (footnotes omitted).

The decisions is at:
http://documents.nytimes.com/disability-advocates-inc-v-david-a-paterson#p=29

Posted by: alex at September 8, 2009 06:13 PM

Group homes are a racket, plain and simple, some ran by the state receive state funding and SSI as form of payment for room and board fees. Keep the patient on meds, (keep them "sick") and the gravy train just keeps on running down the tracks.

Posted by: Stephany at September 9, 2009 01:17 AM

It is a good thing someone caught the watcher, as in who watches the watcher, who judges the judge.

Posted by: mark p.s.2 at September 9, 2009 04:37 AM

7 years and what happened to the ones who spoke up for the article, how much more was their life made hell by falling out of the "good graces" of their care takers? Speak up and get things made worse is the rule of thumb and most people's experience on disability....

Make people live in horrid conditions, then claim its their mental disorder causing the problems and not their keepers...the more things change the more they stay the same....

Posted by: in teh system at September 9, 2009 10:05 AM

I lived in one of those places, aptly nicknamed "Belly of the Beast," in Bronx, NY. The building was 9 stories, only two stories of which were for tenants, the rest for doctors and staff. The building was old, the windows opened with the breeze, so that on cold winter nights, gale winds blew across our beds and we couldn't sleep for the cold. The toilets were so old, they were always overflowing onto the bathroom floor and into the hall. Your socks would get wet with toilet water. The staff were ill-educated, poor, and bitter people who could care less about your well-being. I was one of the lucky ones....I was transferred to a nicer facility, and then into an independent-living housing program. I am now out of all that and living out of New York, for which I give thanks every day. I literally shudder when I think of my life as a mentall disabled person in New York. The indignities....

Posted by: immbas at September 11, 2009 07:13 AM