Group homes face 6 percent cut

[PA Democrat]

Service providers for the intellectually disabled say they were informed last week by the Department of Public Welfare of 6 percent cuts totaling $100 million to $200 million statewide.

The cuts for group homes, which take care of about 16,000 Pennsylvanians, were outlined by providers in testimony today before the Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee.

Last month, DPW officials identified wasteful expenditures in the privately run state-paid homes that each house from one to three residents. Those costs included a bowling alley at one home, as well as chandeliers and luxury cars, officials said.

But Keith Peterson, CEO of Penn-Mar Human Services, which provides services in York County, told senators the cuts will be "devastating" for "an already fragile system of supports for one of the most vulnerable populations in the state." He said the result would be layoffs and difficulty maintaining the level of service.

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_762694.html?_s_icmp=NetworkHeadlines

This is the Republican MO. Find one or two cases of abuse and use them to justify draconian cuts to the entire system. It's the "welfare queen" updated to go after funding for people with disabilities.

[PA Democrat]

1. PA has 16,000 people with intellectual disabilities on the waiting list for services.

A 6% cut will make a tragic situation even worse.

[Divernan]

2. Tom Ridge/GOP gutted the residential state centers to privatize care

We Democrats in the state house had a task force on this, with serious support from then State Auditor/now US Sen. Bob Casey, Jr., but couldn't stop them. The only wasteful expenditures in group homes were/are in the salaries, benefits & profits generated for the owners and very top level executives at the supposedly "non-profit" private companies.

The state centers, which I personally visited extensively prior to their closings, were like private colleges, with beautiful campuses, comfortable and homelike private rooms for the residents and every type of therapy available. They were staffed by decently paid, unionized, well-trained, long-term health care workers. Residents had access to every type of medical specialty, and the physicians/nurses/dentists had the necessary training and skills to treat mentally retarded adults.

By contrast, local ob/gyns, internists and dentists, refused to treat group home residents because it "frightened" or "upset" their other patients, or because the medical personnel in the remote areas had no skills at keeping the mentally ill, and very strong, residents from panicking in the course of exams and treatments.

Once the centers were closed, the residents were scattered throughout the huge state - usually too far away for family members to visit and monitor their care. They were housed in single family residences, often with yards surrounded with high wire fencing. Caregivers were untrained individuals who couldn't get hired at McDonald's and got nominal on-the-job training. There was a 200 to 300 percent annual turnover rate. There would often be only one caregiver at the home, with no one supervising or monitoring how said caregiver performed their job.

Caregivers were dealing drugs, pet-sitting, baby-sitting, etc., in the group homes while being paid by the state. Friends would be invited in to be entertained by ridiculing & tormenting the residents. Sexual abuse was not uncommon. Residents drowned, unattended, in bath tubs. Residents were put outside in the small fenced yard in the depths of winter and left for hours while the caregivers watched their soap operas or entertained their boyfriend/girlfriends. Despite all the social worker/DPW bullshit about empowering the retarded and integrating them into the community, the residents were isolated 24/7 and in no way part of local communities.

The state regulations required that 20% of a business's group homes receive an annual inspection. But the same homes could be inspected every year, meaning many homes were NEVER inspected. Those homes which were inspected were given advance warning by the inspecting agency, DPW. Despite outrageous instances of deliberate abuse and criminal neglect, not one single group home was ordered closed in the years I worked for the state legislature. The worst "punishment" was having a group home's rating downgraded one level. The profits remained in place.

As in private prisons, the privately operated group homes increased their profits by cutting food budgets and caregivers' salaries.

The elderly parents of mentally retarded residents were beside themselves with worry. I had nightmares for years from the abuses which were reported, and we knew those were only the tip of the iceberg.

I'm not talking about mildly retarded adults. I'm talking about seriously retarded adults, who often had serious physical ailments as well. One example out of a hundred I could give - an individual with no swallow reflex, who had to be fed through a stomach tube, and the caretaker proceeded to shove whole, unprocessed foods through the tube. Like I said, nightmarish!

[Divernan]

3. Correction to Paragraph 3. should be mentally retarded,not mentally ill.

There were state facilities for the mentally ill as well - and they also were closed down. That is why so many of the mentally ill, pushed out into halfway houses/group homes, who often did not take their meds, ended up in state prisons. (a boon for the privatized prison owners)