From the San Francisco Chronicle,  Oakland Tribune, Ventura County Star:

A federal judge in Oakland has ordered California to halt cuts to the state’s Adult Day Health Care program, which serves about 37,000 poor, disabled and elderly people. U.S. District Judge Saundra Brown Armstrong found that cutting services could force thousands of Californians to be institutionalized.

Rachel Cameron, spokesperson for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, said the state is planning to appeal the decision.

“The governor understands how difficult these cuts are and sees the real Californians and the real consequences behind them, but had to make difficult and necessary decisions to cut spending in light of the state’s multibillion-dollar deficit,” she said.

The program provides nursing care, meals, and psychiatric, social and other services.

From the Oakland Tribune:

An 86,000-square-foot disability center is scheduled to open next spring in Berkeley, California, with universal access via mass transit.

The idea behind the campus – a first of its kind in the world – is to allow disabled people to get off a BART train and get as many services as possible in one place. Organizations will provide housing services, disability benefits assistance, parenting support, health and fitness support services, job training and development and educational services.

It is expected to serve roughly 30,000 people annually in the Bay Area, center officials said.

The Ed Roberts Campus is named for the pioneering advocate who helped start the independent living movement in Berkeley and paved the way for disabled student services at UC Berkeley.

From the [Newark, NJ] Star-Ledger and Asbury Park Press:

Nearly 300 patients stranded inside New Jersey’s psychiatric hospitals for more than a year because of a lack of housing and outpatient treatment services will be discharged over the next five years, under a lawsuit settlement announced by a disability advocacy group and the state Department of Human Services.

The 2005 lawsuit contended New Jersey’s five psychiatric hospitals routinely and illegally confined hundreds of patients every year who are medically ready to leave but languish because they don’t have an affordable place to live with nearby treatment services.

The 1999 U.S. Supreme Court Olmstead decision affirmed the right of people with disabilities to live in their communities rather than in institutions.

Writing in the Boston Globe, James T. Brett and Marylou Sudders take Massachusetts to task for failing to provide community support services for people with mental illness. The authors chaired a state investigation of the Department of Mental Health’s adult psychiatric inpatient system. An excerpt:

Much of what we heard was troubling. The system was described as responsible for sentencing individuals to lifelong disability and creating an impoverished underclass through poverty, crisis-focused care, treatment that relies mainly on medication, and a lack of community supports.

… We urge Governor Patrick to hear above all else the voices of our citizens living with serious mental illness and their loved ones. The system is not working. Difficult fiscal times are not an excuse to warehouse people with mental illness or to dismantle critical community supports. Rather, it is an opportunity to ensure every precious dollar is spent in a manner that assists individuals to recover, live, and be served in the most appropriate setting possible. If as a society we believe that mental illnesses are as legitimate as physical illnesses, then it is time to stop treating people with mental illness as second-class citizens.

James T. Brett is president and CEO of the New England Council. Marylou Sudders is president and CEO of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and a former commissioner of the Department of Mental Health.

Dave Perez writes in the Sacramento Bee that devastating California budget cuts under the leadership of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger could reverse years of progress for people with disabilities – and cost more money in the long run.

He says California cut $100 million already this year from programs that serve Californians with cerebral palsy, autism and other developmental disabilities, then cut 10 percent from programs that help people with disabilities find jobs, and now is cutting another $234 million, with most of that coming from programs that serve disabled people in their communities.

… The governor likes to show up one day a year at the Special Olympics and act inspired, but given his behavior that just seems to be Hollywood hype. These athletes’ stories offer great Hollywood endings, but the choices he and the Legislature are making will make our kids’ lives more difficult the other 364 days of the year.

Related posts here.

(Sacramento Bee photo)

From the Baltimore Sun:

A Maryland state agency is combing through a waiting list of 19,000 people with developmental disabilities to find out who still needs services. The backlog goes back decades.

Michael Chapman, executive director of Maryland’s Developmental Disabilities Administration, says the state is not looking to drop people from the list. It is seeking to weed out applicants who have moved, no longer need assistance, or need different services, he says.

The initiative underscores the scarce funding for a program that has left some families waiting for more than two decades, says Cristine Marchand, executive director of The Arc of Maryland.

“We feel like pingpong balls between the administration who says they don’t have the money and the legislature that says they’re not raising taxes – ‘go back to the governor,’ ” Marchand said. “And meanwhile, people continue to wait.”

From the Deseret News:

A 40 percent budget cut in General Assistance Program funds approved by Utah lawmakers will eliminate state assistance checks for hundred of Utahns with disabilities by August 1.

“In just over a week, up to 800 people who are unable to work will begin losing the only income they have,” said Tim Funk, an advocate for the homeless and disabled people at Crossroads Urban Center. “The cuts by [the state Department of Workforce Services] go too far and impact people too severely.”

…  “the situation has been allowed to become an emergency that could well mean that on Aug. 1, housing options for even those who have severe medical conditions will be the shelters or the streets,” said Bill Tibbitts, a government policy and program analyst with Crossroads.

Advocates have responded by sending a letter, signed by nine nonprofit and faith-based homeless advocacy groups, asking the governor to step in.