From the New York Times, Newsday, AP and elsewhere:

A federal judge has ruled that New York state illegally discriminated against 4,300 people with mental illness by holding them in privately-run “adult homes” that were just as restrictive as the state-run institutions they were intended to replace.

“The adult homes at issue are institutions that segregate residents from the community and impede residents’ interactions with people who do not have disabilities,” Judge Nicholas Garaufis wrote. ” . . . Defendants have denied thousands of individuals with mental illness in New York City the opportunity to receive services in the most integrated setting appropriate to their needs.”

The individuals “are placed in Adult Homes by ‘luck of the draw for the most part,’ rather than any clinical determination that it is an appropriate setting,” Judge Garaufis wrote. He ordered the state to propose a remedial plan by Oct. 23.

The decision follows a 2002 series of articles by Clifford J. Levy of the New York Times that described scenes of misery, squalor and exploitation in the adult homes.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 9th, 2009 at 1:41 am and is filed under NOT2BEMISSED, institutionalization, law, mental health. 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.