NY budget calls for closing institution
January 20th, 2008From the Buffalo News:
The Western New York Developmental Center in West Seneca, an institution that has housed people with developmental disabilities for decades, will be shut down and its remaining 70 residents shifted to community-based homes under Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s 2008 budget proposal.
The facility employs 400 workers. It cared for 1,700 individuals at its peak 35 years ago.
“This is actually good news,” said Kara Smith, a spokeswoman at the state Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities. “It’s taking people with developmental disabilities and putting them into the communities that they live in, which is what should happen.”

