Earlier today, a federal judge ruled that New York state's system of privately-run adult homes for the mentally ill violates the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis, of United States District Court in Brooklyn, ruled that the state was violating the Americans with Disabilities Act by housing more than 4,300 mentally ill people in New York City in sprawling and often poorly run homes. He said the residents in these homes were essentially warehoused with little hope of mingling with others in the wider community.
Disability Advocates sued the state in July 2003 after an April 2002 investigation by the NYT. The judge ruled that the adult homes didn't give residents an adequate chance to practice independent living skills.
Part of the problem, Garaufis said, is that many of the homes had a more "institutional" feel than the hospitals they replaced in the 1960s and 1970s.
He quoted testimony that indicated patients had to line up to receive the drugs they took — and that the lines were longer than at psychiatric hospitals, because the hospitals are divided into wards.
Hard to believe--until you consider that 28 of the 44 homes in NYC had 120 or more residents. It's a safe bet that many of the homes in Long Island and the upstate are also crowded.
No doubt weighing on Garaufis' mind were some disturbing practices in the homes.
The Times’s investigation found adult homes that were staffed by low-wage workers, some barely literate, even though they were responsible for handing out pills containing precise dosages of complicated medications day after day. Some adult homes were magnets for schemes to bring in Medicaid and Medicare money by all but forcing patients to undergo unneeded treatment, from allergy shots to eye surgery.
The Times’s investigation also found that in some cases state inspectors did not discover sham records on patients. The files had been generated at the last minute, in anticipation of the inspectors’ visits.
Disability Advocates wants the state to help adult-home residents get their own apartments, which would be less expensive to maintain than adult homes. Garaufis didn't go that far, but wants the state to submit reforms by mid-October.