A Policy Change for Special Needs New Yorkers

The Brooklyn Developmental Center, a sprawling, state-run center in the East New York neighborhood of Brooklyn that "housed 614 residents in 1984, is down to 58 spread across five buildings on a 35-acre campus," writes Liz Robbins of The New York Times.

It's closure, along with other centers in Queens, Broome County and Schenectady County comes from the state agency that operates it, the Office of People with Developmental Disabilities (OPWDD), and is part of an effort to "streamline operations while moving patients from institutions to community-based settings," according to the Queens Chronicle. 

"It is part of the state’s long-planned process of deinstitutionalization, which follows a national trend since the 1980s that has been lauded by advocates and officials, who say that less-restrictive care and community living are more humane for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities," writes Robbins. OPWDD "operates more than 1,000 group homes."

The new model is also substantially less expensive. In New York, in 2012, services at public institutions cost more than three times as much per person as services provided to adults living in group homes.

However, that's not the main topic of the article, who is a 50-year-old adult "with profound autism and self-injurious behavior who does not speak." He has lived at the center since he was fourteen. He has developed routines that have become his "refuge (that) will abruptly end", if the state has its way, before the end of the year. His parents, though, are fighting to stop the closure.

Robbins provides great insight into the past and current life of this one disabled adult; how he "is calmed by taking walks (and) has an aide with him 24 hours a day," and how his parents have adapted to having their son live there.

There is some irony in their fight to keep the center open, though, as the father had successfully sued it "for negligence, and which has had compliance issues with the State Health Department," writes Robbins. However, he "does not trust that the alternative will be safer."

Driving the closures in New York and nationwide "is a 1999 United States Supreme Court case, known as the Olmstead decision, which made it unlawful to restrict people in institutions and required that states provide opportunities for community living," writes Robbins. "Now, 12 states and the District of Columbia have completely eliminated large state-operated institutions."

It is the families whose members know no other way of life who have the toughest time with the change.

One example of an innovative group home in Sonoma, Calif. incorporating architecture meant to improve the residents' environment was posted here in 2013.