Earlier this month an article in the Sacramento Bee reported on concerns about the high cost of housing developmentally disabled people through the regional center system. (California housing for developmentally disabled has high cost, by Jack Chang, 1/2/2011) One example cited was the $2.9 million dollars spent in 2006 by Inland Regional Center to develop four homes in Riverside County. Four years later, those same homes have been assessed at 31 percent of the cost to develop them.
The Sacramento Bee found that in building the four homes in Riverside County, Inland "overspent on real estate because it paid above-market rates for new construction, issued no-bid contracts and paid rent on an empty headquarters building"
A contributing issue it seems is the practice of using non-profit affiliates to build homes -- a practice that many centers use with the encouragement of the State of California. The reason given for the practice is that there was a concern that private caregivers providing housing under contract to the State could close, creating a housing shortage, and so regional centers have been encouraged to work with the affiliates to devlop other housing opportunities.
We would agree with the sentiment expressed in the article that the finances are hard to fathom. Existing developmental centers are being closed and their services eliminated while the developmentally disabled are dispersed throughout the community into a less than transparent fiscal and management situation where it seems care comes at inflated costs.
Fortunately, there are people in Sacramento who are beginning to ask questions.
State Sen. Bill Emmerson, R-Hemet is quoted as saying, "This whole new direction that regional centers are taking is very troubling to me. The amount of money that's being spent (on housing) is problematic, and we need to get to the bottom of it," and he plans to hold hearings into the system.
According to the article, Emmerson also plans to "investigate compensation in the regional center system, spurred in part by a Bee report in November that showed that the head of one Ontario-based service provider, Benson House, received $520,000 in state-funded salary in 2008 to oversee care for several dozen people."
The scrutiny of the regional center system could not come at a more important time for the remaining developmental centers and the State's budget. Before California fully abandons its existing system of developmental centers, it's important to be sure that good care and adequate housing can be reasonably provided by the regional centers for even its most severely disabled citizens.
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