Legislators Urged to Keep Sonoma Developmental Center Open

The second meeting of the State task force considering the future of California's remaining developmental centers was held yesterday in Sacramento, and the first press report is in on the lobbying activities organized around the task force meeting. Many family and advocates for developmental center residents testified in support of maintaining centers as an option for some, while others lobbied for closure of all state-run facilities.

from the article:
“'The next 25 years of Mark's life should not be spent with caregivers who are recruited from Craigslist and promised a wage of $10 an hour,' Diane Halcromb said of her 50-year-old brother, Mark Dunkelberger, who has been a resident of the Eldridge facility since 1988.

"Halcromb was among several family members to address the task force, which is weighing California's role in providing services to 260,000 of the state's disabled residents, including 1,510 who reside in one of the state's four remaining developmental centers. With nearly 500 residents, Sonoma is the largest of those facilities.

"Fighting through tears, Marcella Harris described for the panel the struggle to find quality care for her autistic 17-year-old son. She said she finally obtained a court order for him to be placed at Sonoma, but not before he may have permanently blinded himself, the result of him banging his head against walls and repeatedly hitting himself.

"She now fears for his future with the court order expiring and his return to a group home in San Jose.
Harris told the task force that 'there's something wrong in the safety net. There's a hole in it.'"

According to the PD, "about 50 people who staged a counter-rally outside the Department of Rehabilitation building called for the immediate closure of developmental centers, which they say have led to rampant abuse of patients, out-dated models of care and a waste of taxpayer money"

You can read the entire article here: Families urge keeping Sonoma Developmental Center open, by Derek Moore, in The Press Democrat, 8/19/2013.