Writing an op-ed in the Houston Chronicle, Mary Faithfull calls for immediate action to get people with disabilities out of Texas’ 13 state “schools,” and put an end to the abuse, neglect and exploitation that is happening on the sites. The segregated institutions house some 5,000 Texans away from public view.

Faithfull’s column follows a series of articles in the Dallas Morning News documenting injuries and deaths due to neglect and abuse. (See earlier stories here and here and here.)

It’s clear things are going wrong, and have been for a long time. Last December, the U.S. Department of Justice sent findings from its 2005 investigation of the Lubbock State School to Gov. Rick Perry. Citing the deaths of at least four residents and a long list of deficiencies, the Justice Department concluded the residents were at “great risk of harm.”

In the year and a half after Justice’s visit to Lubbock, 17 more residents died. Officials at the Department of Aging and Disability Services (DADS), the state agency that oversees the institutions, insist things have improved at that facility, but have yet to finalize an agreement to resolve the Justice Department’s concerns.

… Most people want to live in the community. They want to be seen and heard — to be a part of the things everybody else is part of. They want to be safe. And the simple fact is they are not safe hidden away in large institutions, removed from the public view.

… It doesn’t make sense to continue pouring precious dollars into an archaic system that isolates people based on disability labels and some unfortunate stereotypes and assumptions. The quality of community-based programs, services and supports has advanced such that even people with the most significant disabilities can thrive outside an institution. Let’s help them live in the protection of communities, with a wider circle people looking out for their interests.

Faithfull is executive director of Advocacy Inc. in Austin.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 28th, 2007 at 8:39 am and is filed under abuse, disabilities, institutionalization. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.  Email This Post