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Washington Post Letter to the Editor

TO:		Washington Post
		Letters to the Editor

FROM:		Polly Spare
		President
		Voice of the Retarded
		5005 Newport Drive, Suite 108
		Rolling Meadows, IL 60008
		
RE:		The Washington Post Investigative Series on DC Group Homes
		Sunday, March 14 - Thursday, March 18, 1999

DATE:   	March 22, 1999

Katherine Boo is to be congratulated for her excellent series alerting 

the general public to the risks associated with community-based care
for people with mental retardation when adequate services are not
provided, and oversight is lax.

Voice of the Retarded (VOR), a national advocacy organization, has
long cautioned that ill-planned deinstitutionalization efforts would lead
to higher rates of abuse, neglect and death.  Today's institutions boast 
expertise in a variety of disciplines aimed at ensuring that current 
residents - many of whom are profoundly mentally retarded and medically 
fragile - live the most fulfilling, productive and safe lives possible. 
Today's institutions benefit from federal oversight and monitoring, 
something Ms. Boo showed was sorely lacking in the D.C. 
community-based system.

Advocates in favor of total closure blindly march forward to the
beat of a drum that is relentless. Closure after closure has resulted in
situations across the country that mirror the D.C. experience. Many stem
from expensive lawsuits like the one that felled Forest Haven. Advocates
can agree that a great many people with mental retardation are thriving in
community-based care. Many others, however, suffer due to the well-meaning,
though misguided, advocacy in pursuit of civil rights. As the Post
investigative series aptly illustrates, civil rights have little to do with
the type of setting (size) and more to do with the commitment by advocates
and policymakers to ensure that quality services are provided.

Abuse, neglect, death, waiting lists, lack of family and individual
choice. These are the scars of deinstitutionalization. Yet, despite the
battle wounds of our most vulnerable and innocent citizens are left in the
wake of the downsizing fervor, and the beat goes on.  Advocates across the
country fail to recognize the obvious and continue to seek the downsizing
and ultimate closure of all of our nation's centers.

It is time the blinders came off.  Individuals with mental retardation deserve to be treated as individuals with unique needs. Many of
our people thrive in quality community- based settings (public and
private); others require the more medically-intensive services offered in
institutional settings. Advocates must commit to respect each other and
work together to ensure that people with mental retardation and their
families have the opportunity to choose the level of care most appropriate
for their needs - and we must demand that all settings offer safe,
appropriate, high quality supports.

As citizens and advocates, we must ban together and demand no less;
citizens with mental retardation deserve no less.  It has been said that
there will never again be a Willowbrook. We must now work together to
ensure that there will never again be the D.C. experience. We must start by
acknowledging the error in total deinstitutionalization.

/s/ Polly Spare

POLLY SPARE

President
Voice of the Retarded
Rolling Meadows, IL