Fight Back Against AH Ruling Press That Calls Us Too Frail, Feeble, Dangerous
Monday, March 8, 2010
NYAPRS Note: We need our readers who support the rights of people with psychiatric and other disabilities to live in dignity and recovery in the community to support Judge Nicholas Garaufis’ landmark ruling by weighing in by adding your voice to comments to recent articles in the NYC/NYS media that wrongly suggest that adult home residents cannot be supported in the community and need to ‘age in place’ forever in the profitable homes. Help us stand up to the NYC tabloids who regularly mischaracterize people with psychiatric disabilities as too frail, feeble or dangerous to live in the community….this is reminiscent of the racist or sexist subtones that are no longer permissible in today’s media but often done to us.
Public opinion is always very important…no more so than now, when we are on the heels of unprecedented judicial support for the ADA rights of people with disabilities to live in the most integrated setting in the community.
Please go to the following links and add your voice today to counteract some of the bilge that’s in the headlines and below the articles. Thanks!!
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2010/03/06/2010-03-06_judged_crazy.html
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/the_coming_homeless_boom_5T3ecpRS9jzmTStutw6wxH
http://gothamist.com/2010/03/01/mentally_ill_new_yorkers_to_live_in.php#comments
http://polhudson.lohudblogs.com/2010/03/03/state-appeals-ruling-in-case-on-adult-homes/
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/brooklyn/housing_win_for_mentally_ill_dzSMwYVCkSpkQEzx1dmO0J
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/02/state-told-to-change-how-the-mentally-ill-are-housed/
http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/03/ny-disabled-adults-win-court-ruling
Federal Court Orders N.Y. To Move Adult Home Residents With MI Into Community
N.Y. Advocates (See) Victory Over Court’s Remedy Order
Mental Health Weekly March 8, 2010
New York mental health and disability rights advocates are hailing an important victory for adult home residents with psychiatric disabilities, following a federal judge’s ruling last week ordering state officials to afford all qualified residents the opportunity to move from institutional settings into supported housing in the community.
U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis ruled March 1 that the state must create housing with 1,500 beds in each of the next three years. He ruled that state officials must change the way they manage their mental health system in order for adult home residents to have a choice to receive the services to which they are entitled to in supported housing rather than an adult home.
The court also ruled that no individual with mental illness who is qualified for supported housing is offered placement in an adult home unless, after being fully informed, he or she declines the opportunity to receive services in supported housing.
The court’s remedy follows last year’s historic ruling by Garaufis that the state had violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Rehabilitation Act by housing more than 4,300 consumers with mental illness in large nursing homes rather than integrating them into the community (see MHW, Sept. 14, 2009).
Disability Advocates, Inc., (DAI) a non-profit group had filed a lawsuit in 2003, DAI v. Paterson, on behalf of the residents residing in 28 adult homes in New York City, alleging that the homes lack the staff, resources or mandate to provide integrated housing and services to promote community living.
The State subsequently proposed its own remedial plan as mandated by the September court ruling and called for the New York Office of Mental Health (OMH) to fund 200 new units of supported housing each year for five years beginning in fiscal year 2010-2011 for a total of 1,000 new units. Advocates took issue with the plan, saying it “fell short” of the judge’s decision to address the housing needs of adult home residents (see MHW, Nov. 23, 2009).
In last week’s ruling, Garaufis said it was “incredulous that defendants sincerely believed this proposal would suffice.” New York State after reviewing the federal district court’s ruling has filed a notice of appeal, Jill Daniels, OMH director of public affairs, told MHW.
“This is a very wrong decision,” Jeffrey Edelman, president of the Board of the New York Coalition for Quality Assisted Living, which represents adult home owners and facilities. “It’s taking away a very important choice. Most residents are unable to live on their own.” Edelman said residents are living in integrated communities. “They’re supervised, but they’re also extremely integrated in the community,” he told MHW. We’re in the middle of a residential community.”
State Requirements
Among other things, the order requires the state to:
• Ensure that within four years, all qualified adult home residents are afforded placement in supported housing if they want it.
• Contract with supported housing providers to conduct “inreach” to adult home residents to engage them, develop relationships with them, build trust, provide information and actively support them in moving to supported housing.
• Court will appoint a monitor to oversee compliance.
“The court’s remedy order brings us one step closer to a model mental health system that provides supported housing for people with mental illness,” Jeanette Zelhof, deputy director, MFY Legal Services, Inc., which represented DAI in the lawsuit, told MHW. The ruling is expected to have a “ripple effect” and could serve as a national model, especially after the New York Department of Justice intervened in the lawsuit in late 2009 during the remedial phase, said Zelhof. “New York has set a precedent for other states around the country,” she said.
Cliff Zucker, executive director of Disability Advocates, Inc. agrees that the court’s final remedial order will have a national impact. “It’s going to make a huge difference for thousands of people currently housed in institutions and give them the opportunity of living a life of freedom in an integrated setting,” he said. Some of the residents testified “very movingly” during the trial last year about their desire to live in more integrated communities, said Zucker. Former adult home residents now living in some of the state’s 60 supported housing units, testified that living in integrated settings has made a big difference in their life, he said.
Harvey Rosenthal, chief executive of New York Association for Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services (NYAPRS), said he is somewhat surprised the state revealed its plans to appeal after (only) two days of the court’s decision. “It is very disturbing that the state has not found the political will to redirect millions of dollars they committed to housing adult home residents and moving them into community settings” with that funding, Rosenthal told MHW.
Olmstead Impact
Advocates long believed that the federal lawsuit represented the state’s failure to comply with the Supreme Court’s 1999 Olmstead v. L.C. decision, which suggested that states demonstrate compliance with the ADA by producing formal plans for increasing community integration. “Many people have been under the misimpression that the Olmstead decision doesn’t require states to do very much,” Jennifer Mathis, deputy legal director for the Judge David L. Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, told MHW. The DAI decision and the court’s remedy order make it clear that that is incorrect, she stated.
“This is an extremely important ruling,” said Mathis “It reaffirms the importance of integration as a civil right and lays out the types of measures that states may need to take in order to comply with Olmstead.” Many states have wrongly looked at Olmstead compliance as a costly measure, she said. “To the contrary; complying with Olmstead typically saves states money. It’s about people’s civil rights.”
“The fact is that it is a cost savings to comply with Olmstead if they actually reallocated their resources from institutional settings to community settings,” she said.
New York has some of the leading supported housing providers in the country, said Mathis. “They know how to serve a wide range of people with mental illness — including people with very challenging needs — effectively in supported housing,” she said.
Mathis added, “New York must now expand that supported housing capacity so that people with mental illness can have a meaningful choice and can live in supported housing rather than being stuck in adult homes.”