State Operated Institutions

[Guest guest]

From:

txpacs [mailto:txpacs ] On Behalf Of Jeff Garrison-Tate

Sent: Sunday, May 08, 2011 3:30 PM

To: cn_bod ; txpacs

Subject: [txpacs] State Operated

Institutions

Dear

Friends,

In the upcoming days a conference committee will be appointed to

determine final decisions on the Texas

budget. These final decisions will directly impact the lives of thousands

of people with disabilities and older people. Our elected officials will

be making life and death decisions not to mention decisions that impact the

fundamental freedom for people to live their lives in community. There

are cuts being considered for Attendant care wages...the people who support

others every day to purse their lives in community. Attendants already

are often paid minimum wages with no benefits. How do you cut what is

already not there to cut?

Public school teachers are on the chopping block, services for older

people are slated to be cut...on and on. There are people who have waited

for more than a decade to get the services they need that are at risk of

loosing those services. How do you finally provide the services someone

needs after years of waiting and then take them away? Dangle freedom and

take it back? If you are a person who receives waiver services or have a

loved one who receives waiver services...what will you say? How

will you explain to someone who has had a taste of freedom that it is gone?

I am thinking we should let our Legislators sit down with our children

and tell them why they took their freedom. Perhaps our Legislators can

look them in th eye and say... " Well, kid pull yourself up by your

bootstraps! " " Are there no workhouses? "

Well yes there are workhouses: Institutions in Texas for those people who dare to dream of

a real life in community. These Institutions are the entitlement.

So, if you really get mad that your freedom is taken back and you

" act out " because you just don't have words to describe how you

feel...well there is always the Institutions where they will take care of

you.

According the the proposed budget in the Senate, no state operated

institutions will be closed, there is one institution in the House budget

proposed to close. Our Lt. Governor has told us there is no will to close

state operated institutions in Texas.

We need to help our leaders find the will.

As unprecedented cuts are being proposed for community services and

supports, our leadership will not touch the biggest CASH COW in Texas: State Supported

Living Centers. It has been said that the cost benefit to close one

institution is limited. Yes, the closure process of one facility may not

yield much savings the first year...but if there was any vision to see past 2

years and develop a real plan, savings would be very substantial. Ask the

Legislative Budget Board. Their report outlined for the legislature why

it was a cost benefit to close Texas Institutions. You can go to the

Community Now! website to learn more about the unbelievable costs of these

places to tax payers. (communitynowfreedom.com)

The hypocrisy is difficult to fathom.

I have been told that many new Legislators just don't understand and

that they need to be educated about the ridiculous cost of Institutions.

I do not believe this to be true. Community Now! has made several

rounds with veteran legislators and the new kids on the block. We have

worked hard with our friends to call for no cuts to community services as well

as delivering a message to develop a plan to get everyone out that wants out

and develop a long range plan to close institutions in Texas. There have been a couple of

bills to do just that, but they are gasping for their last breath. The

language in these bills appears to be directly from the Legislative Budget

Board report.

Our legislators have been educated with what they want to hear.

There are families who are very outspoken, loud and tough about keeping

institutions alive and well. Their loved ones from their perception

belong and thrive in institutions. The majority of people living in

institutions have no guardians and are controlled by the state. These are

the people who continue to have a very limited voice. No one is packing up

vans to bring people from institutions to the Capitol. And what would you

say if the only thing you knew about life was living in an institution?

Community Now! was founded with the fundamental belief that people

existing in institutions who want to get out, should get out, and a plan should

be developed to close institutions AND return any saved funding to people on

the waiting lists, to build up capacity in community.

It is time to call upon our friends from other Advocate groups to turn

up the VOLUME in a unified voice to call on the Senate to reinstate their

original recommendation to close at least 2 institutions!

We believe that the real reason their is no will in the Legislature is

because of money. Money that stays in communities that host a state supported

living center. This money is a part of the economic infra-structure of

these legislators districts. An infra-structure that often depends on

these institutions as their largest employer. Further state operated

institution employees are a part of the state employees union, a strong lobby

and a broad reach of voters. The lack of will is more like the lack of

courage, the lack of initiative and failure to look at the truth. We know

that several states have closed all of their institutions and the economic

impact in the end has been minimal. What happens is that staff do not

loose their jobs, but follow people out of institutions and into the community,

that providers of community services purchase, build or lease homes, that

people who have moved into their community become a " part of the

community, not a financial drain on the community " .

This is not a party issue: not Republican or Democrat.

Indeed, some of the disability community's best friends in the

legislature have institutions in their districts and remain quiet, try to ride

the fence or flat out don't want to close em. We need to stop playing

this dance and call upon our legislative friends to find the will and lead the

charge.

I have left out until now the real cost of institutions. I have

focused on money as that is what seems to drive decisions and if that is what

drives the decision to close institutions, I am all for it. I don't

really care what the issue is that forces closure. However, the real cost

is in human lives. Death, abuse, neglect, manipulation, loss of freedom,

loss of real relationships, loss of individual gifts to the community. It is

difficult to articulate the moral injustice to the people living in those

places. Moral injustice paid for by your tax dollars. Over and over and

over and over for decades we have heard the stories of rampant, bizzare abuse,

methods of killing people, cover up, horror. The Department of Justice

sited many, many situations of abuse, neglect and civil rights violations.

The DOJ continues to monitor these places for two years now and the

facilities show about 10% compliance to the settlement agreement. And yet

they pay and we pay with not only our money, but with the loss of our morality.

A shameful reflection of our Texas

community.

In the upcoming days, Community Now! will be asking for you to

step up the volume, to speak out, to do something to tell our legislative

leaders to grow some will.

Community Now! was also founded on the premise that we will

speak and act out to push Texas

to close these places. We will not hang our heads in silence even if we

are not heard. We will know that on that day and at that time whatever it

was, we spoke up. We did what was in our power to say ENOUGH! We

hope you will join us as we continue to say ENOUGH: get em out, get a plan,

Community Now!

Choose Freedom,

Jeff

He who passively accepts evil is

as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil

without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.

Luther

King, Jr.

--

Jeff Garrison-Tate

http://www.communitynowfreedom.com/

http://communitynowfreedom.blogspot.com/

Please go to the link below to join the Community Now! List.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Community_Now/

[Guest guest]

I am still waiting for these elected officials to talk about taking their own pay cuts.  I only know I will vote for NO incumbent in the next elections.  I've heard a lot of " talk " about autism in the last few years, and seen very little action.

However, if we close the institutions, where are all those children/adults supposed to go?  On the streets?

[Guest guest]

Texas has 13 institutions with apx

4098 residents. In 2013 the projected number of residents is expected to be

3686. If Texas

would develop a plan for consolidation – those who wanted to stay in the

institution could stay and those who wish to leave could leave with funding

from the Promoting Independence initiative.