CAIC AB 896 PositionFor those who are not familiar with Assembly Bill 896, which proposes to
close California's institutions for people with developmental disabilities,
more information is available from this Inclusion Daily Express web page:
POSITION STATEMENT
on
AB 896, System Unification
Assemblywoman Dion Aroner has introduced the most important legislation for people with developmental disabilities in the last twenty-five years. This legislation addresses full-blown crises in both California's aging institutions for the disabled and in its community-based system of services.
Crisis in Community System
We share our communities with 170,00 people with developmental disabilities such as mental retardation, autism, cerebral palsy, and epilepsy. These people can live meaningful lives because they are supported by a wide range of services, from personal assistants to intensive residential care. We share our parks, theaters, stores, restaurants, schools, and workplaces with these fellow citizens. Even people with the most severe disabilities choose from of a variety of community services and take part in the vast diversity of experience that our communities offer.
However, the community services that make this miracle possible are close to collapse because of chronic and severe underfunding. Rates for community service providers are so low that they have trouble hiring and retaining competent staff. Pay scales and turnover rates are comparable to fast food restaurants. Providers in higher cost areas of the state are going out of business at a frightening rate, and new services are not taking their place. In this desperate situation, the people with the greatest needs are increasingly placed in danger or forced into institutions.
Crisis in Developmental Center System
In contrast to the community system, the aging state institutions expend vast amounts of taxpayer dollars, consuming more than 25% of the total developmental services budget for just 2% of the people. Despite such tremendous outlays, these antiquated facilities are increasingly unable to meet federal health, safety, and program standards. Last year, California lost $50,000,000 of federal funding because two of our five institutions could not meet federal standards of care. And finally, these old building face a $1.5 BILLION repair bill just to bring them up to health and safety code and comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. For such an absurd sum, we could purchase mansions in communities such as Hillsborough, Blackhawk, and Beverly Hills and comfortably house all current institutional residents with attendant maid, butler and chauffeur services.
The financial crisis facing the old institutions is a reflection of a service system that is past its time. At the end of the nineteenth century, California institutions for the disabled were cutting-edge social services. But in recent decades, the population of large institutions has steadily declined both nationally and in California due to (1) growing recognition of the rights and potential of people with disabilities, (2) enactment of anti-segregation civil rights laws, and (3) court decisions upholding the rights of the disabled. The population of California's institutions has declined from 14,000 in the 1960s to only 3,800 people today as we have found more humane and modern methods of assisting people with disabilities. Thus, the evolution of civil rights, exploding costs, increasing difficulty in meeting modern standards of care, and the prohibitive costs of fixing the old buildings have rendered the state institution system unsustainable.
Solutions
Dion Aroner's AB 896 is the only solution to these crises offered by either the administration or the legislature. Instead of allowing the costs of institutional care to continue to escalate, she seeks their orderly closure. By redistributing their assets to more cost effective and modern models of care, the legislation will create high-quality services in our communities for Californian's who are most at risk.
Specifically, the legislation will create “models of excellence” throughout California for both those who are currently institutionalized and people with the same level of disability who already share community life with us. It will increase wages for community support staff, give families greater control over money to support their loved one, and monitor for quality. Additionally, more help will be available for families who are currently struggling to keep their loved one at home. Also, proceeds from the sale of the old institutions will be used to vastly expand affordable housing for people with disabilities and create technical centers of excellence for producing adaptive equipment, customized wheelchairs and other equipment to help people with unique needs lead a freer life.
Many elderly parents who institutionalized their children decades ago (when there were no other options) are afraid for the future of their children should the institutions fade away. But AB 896 responds to their fears. People moving out of the institutions will have safeguards built into the planning and transition process, family involvement in transition and planning will be encouraged, current institution employees will be enabled to follow the people they now serve to community settings, the new services for these people will be “models of excellence” designed to set a standard for the future of the developmental services system, and ongoing monitoring will ensure follow through in implementation of the Act. And, most importantly, the legislation does not rely on theoretical increased appropriations to accomplish all this. The money is already there. In this way, the legislation offers these aging parents the confidence that their disabled children will be supported by quality services for the rest of their lives.
AB 896 is a humane and technically sound approach for developing future options for current institution residents and for meeting the complex needs of people with similar disabilities who already enjoy community living. Simply by spending taxpayer dollars wisely, people with the most severe disabilities will have the dignity and joy of exploring the extraordinary diversity of what the rest of us take for granted: Community living.