Speaking for the Disabled

In March, PHA co-president Mary O'Riordan wrote a letter to the editor of the Marin Independent Journal in response to reports in the paper on budget problems for care homes for the disabled in Marin County and the cost of maintaining developmental centers. (See: State budget cut threatens to close six Marin group homes for the disabled, by Richard Halstead, 3/28/2011).

That letter was reprinted in the April 2011 issue of The Eldridge Gazette, which members should be receiving anytime. For those who do not receive The Gazette, or who did not catch the coverage in the Marin IJ, the letter is reprinted below.

Dear Editor:

I read with interest your article on cuts to six Marin group homes for disabled people. I am hopeful that the legislators will find a way to fund these homes and not allow them to be closed. The care of our disabled citizens should never be in jeopardy, we are all better people when we do what is right and secure their services and their future allowing them to have the best lives possible.

What I do not like is something that continues to happen whenever stories of this nature get publicized. The description of the developmental centers and the inflated cost per person that is stated. Comparing the developmental centers to group homes is like comparing apples and oranges. The developmental centers have all the necessary services centralized, day programs, the very best medical and dental services, physical therapy, speech therapy and many other amenities that the families over the years have been able to put in place.

My son lived at Sonoma Developmental Center for 18 years before he passed away in January just a few weeks short of his 46th birthday. Prior to that he was in Porterville Developmental Center where he received equally good, loving, professional care. Prior to that he was in a privately run home - Good Shepherd Home - in Terra Bella, which was sponsored by the Lutheran Church and was very well run but lacked the medical care and oversight my son needed when his seizures became more frequent and more severe. The developmental center saved my son's life due to the experience, expertise and familiarity with this unique population and their needs and the complications of seizure medications. All this has been gained over 100 years of caring for this population and is not readily available elsewhere.

The entire system for the care of our developmentally disabled loved ones would be much more effective and successful if both the private sector and the public sector worked together and not be bashing each other. Three developmental centers have closed over the past 20 years and has there been one dollar more put into the community homes - the group homes and the board and care homes? Yet the agencies with an agenda keep quoting this huge inflated cost for the developmental centers and continue to tell families that the cost of the developmental centers is the real reason there is not enough money to fund the private homes. The figure usually given for the private homes only includes board and care and does not factor in day programs, transportation, medical and dental and all the trips to emergency rooms.

Families need to join forces and work together to find out what is true and what is false and see for themselves what is being offered and how to best use the funding that is available. Also, no one needs to fear living in a developmental center. Sonoma Developmental Center has the most beautiful campus, as someone who visited one day said "this is a place of healing" and from my personal experience, this is true. The staff who have inherited the tradition of caring for this population, are the most professional, caring professional I have ever met. I cannot say enough to let the world know how dedicated and loving and professional they are and continue to be.

I would like to call on Assemblyman Jared Huffman to look into the cost of the Community Placement Program which is costing $77,409,000 this year alone and use this money to keep these Marin homes open. This money is to develop homes for people at the developmental centers, who already are placed and are happy with their placement and thriving in their placements; these homes often remain unused for several months or even years as the people in the developmental centers do not want to leave. Sometimes the families end up suing to keep their developmentally disabled loved one at SDC so the ones who get moved are the ones who do not have family members involved, which is also wrong. This is also upsetting older people who are facing their end of life and want their son or daughter to remain at SDC where they have spent 40 to 50 years and are doing great, so this program needs to be eliminated and this money can be used to help fund these homes.

So, please - let's begin to get past the rhetoric and the lies, come see for ourselves and become acquainted with all aspects of care for our developmentally disabled loved ones. We owe this much to them, they are our heroes. I miss my son terribly and I am also thankful every day for his life and my wish is that all developmentally disabled people receive the same level of care that he received. He was God's special gift to us and he taught us so much.

Mary O'Riordan