Both Sides Are Wrong In Case of Home For People With Disabilities

I've been monitoring and watching a situation in the town of Middlesex, a small community in upstate NY. As I've watched, listened and done research, I've concluded that this is one of those situations where both parties are wrong and sadly, neither side is very willing to listen to the other.

For many years, the NYS Office for People with Developmental Disabilities operated a community residence for ten people with developmental disabilities in this small rural community. Earlier this year, this state agency determined that the site was dangerous for the people living there because of fire safety and accessibility issues and that major renovations had to occur to make the home safe. Now it should be noted that people had been calling this place home for 17 plus years according to reports. Due to the fact that the renovations were so substantial and would take an extended period of time, administrators determined that it would be best to relocate the residents to other homes in the Finger Lakes region. So.......next chapter but delivered at about the same time -  the state announced it would be closing a 120 person institution in Rochester, NY and residents from there would move in to the renovated home in Middlesex. Another piece of information - the institution in Rochester houses a Forensic Unit and a number of the individuals to be placed in Middlesex could be identified and listed as sex offenders.

A neighborhood group stepped up and initially presented themselves as being concerned about the former  residents of the home, how they and their families were treated and relocated throughout the region. They presented themselves in effect as advocates for these people who were being forced to move from their home. They set up meetings with representatives from the state agency and with various elected officials including their local State Senator and Assemblyman.

The meeting with the state agency representative went badly. Either the state wasn't really prepared for the meeting or there truly was an attitude of 'our way or no way'. Family members of people relocated expressed anger and frustration at how they were dealt with and promises that were made but not kept by the agency. Things probably could have been salvaged at this point but the effort doesn't seem to have been made. The most basic thing is that the state agency could and probably should have found ways to meet with and accommodate the one family that was having the most difficulty. Instead, this family was left to align themselves with the larger group even though their interests have turned out to be very different.

The neighborhood group has turned into and possibly was from the very beginning a very vocal 'Not In My Backyard' group who are extremely upset about the potential of Level 2 and Level 3 sex offenders moving into their neighborhood. Many of their concerns are legitimate and they are asking appropriate questions. As with all groups however, they also have some people involved who don't seem to know when they are crossing the line relative to reasonable and legitimate questions and moving toward stereotyping and hate speech. Recently the group's website posted an ad they were threatening to run in local Pennysavers that was a good example of attacking a whole system of care and promoting fear and discrimination. It went beyond political action and took away from the group's credibility. These folks should continue to hold government's feet to the fire but they should take a deep breath before they make statements about people they don't know and before they put targets on people's backs. Too many people are willing to jump on a cause against groups of people who are different and at some point people will forget what reasonable concerns are.

The NYS Office for Developmental Disabilities has a pretty big problem here and they don't seem to recognize it. Their public relations and planning was awful in this case. Many people have worked for years to make sure that people with developmental disabilities were welcomed and became part of local communities. In some cases this was not an easy task and it was always made more difficult by regulatory issues that forced homes to become facilities. This issue in Middlesex has the potential of dismantling years of work by both the state and private providers. The folks in Middlesex understand political activism and processes. They deserve credit for this. Frankly, if done correctly, their efforts could force some much needed planning around support for people with very specific needs.

I'm not confident this will happen. The state agency is taking some pretty self righteous positions around this situation - wanting to go to battle over people's rights to be placed anywhere they want. That may be a wonderful ideal to fight for but the reality is that sex offenders are in fact treated differently in our society, in institutions and in communities. I don't condone it but it is a fact. All you have to do is look around your own community. See where these folks live. See how difficult it is for them to get and/or keep employment.

The history of individuals with developmental disabilities involved in the criminal justice system is not something that people have spent the appropriate resources on. There are a couple of reasons for that. For one thing, the numbers are not that high. In addition, the behavioral approaches and resources haven't been utilized very well. Finally, state agencies and law enforcement have played a who's responsible for this person game for many years. Legitimately, there have been times when law enforcement, including judges, have said that it makes no sense to place a particular person with a particular disability in the criminal justice system and from a rehabilitation perspective they're probably correct.

So there is a dilemma for NYS - here they are trying to close a few institutions across the state where a fairly small number of these people reside. Questions need to be asked. If these individuals weren't in these institutions now, where would they be? Probably in the criminal justice system or unsupervised in the community I would guess. Now I'm a strong believer in the fact that no one benefits from an institutional setting. But how should these folks be dealt with? Where should they live? What supports do they need?

Here's my opinion for what it's worth. NYS should convene a set of experts, providers and community leaders, including elected officials and municipal leaders, to develop the plan that's needed for this population and for these closures. Plans are not going to be the same for every person or every community. It's going to take shared resources. Communities where placement and supports occur are going to need to have supports in place and this is going to take resources and communication. None of it will take place with finger pointing or blaming or position taking about who's right and who's wrong. It won't help for people to paint pictures of monsters either.

As I said early on, this really is an example of both sides being wrong. Hopefully some lessons have been learned and both sides will be a little more respectful of each other.