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The Arc condems White House Aide’s use of the R-word

January 29th, 2010

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Laura Hart
January 27, 2010 202.534.3712; hart@thearc.org

THE ARC CONDEMNS WHITE HOUSE AIDE’S USE OF R-WORD
Washington, DC–Reports that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel used an epithet relating to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities is both shocking and disappointing.

According to a Wall Street Journal story on an embattled White House, “Some attendees said they were planning to air ads attacking conservative Democrats who were balking at Mr. Obama’s health-care overhaul. ‘F—ing retarded,’ Mr. Emanuel scolded the group, according to several participants.” We hope that the Members of Congress in that meeting were equally offended.

This is the second serious verbal miscue by the Administration about people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. President Obama’s unfortunate statement last year on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, equating his poor bowling performance with that of people with intellectual disabilities, sparked justifiable outrage from people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families. The President subsequently apologized for his remarks and disabilities advocates saw it as a teachable moment. Mr. Emanuel’s use of  hateful language would suggest that it is the White House staff that needs to be taught a lesson in respect for people with disabilities.

Statements such as these—particularly when used by someone at high level—amplifies pervasive societal attitudes that people with intellectual and developmental disabilities somehow don’t measure up—that their lives are worth less. “Using a slur about people with intellectual disabilities to criticize other people just isn’t right,” said Peter V. Berns, chief executive officer of The Arc of the United States. “For people with disabilities it is disrespectful and demeaning and only serves to marginalize a constituency that already struggles for empowerment on every front,” Berns added.

Disability rights advocates had high hopes for this Administration when the President appointed a Special Assistant to the President for Disability Policy. This was a move that the Administration called: “our first step to ensure that we have a strong advocate for people with disabilities at the highest levels of our Administration.”

The more than seven million individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families demand an apology for Mr. Emanuel’s use of language that denigrates our constituency. The White House needs to lead by example and demonstrate through words and actions that it is not acceptable to use people with disabilities as a source for ridicule. To condone this language is to deny opportunities for people with disabilities in the workplace, in the community, in school, and in every other quarter of society.

The Arc of the United States strongly supports legislation (S.2781) introduced by Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland that would change the term “mental retardation” or “mentally retarded” to “intellectual disabilities.” Given the two White House incidents of inappropriate use of the term regarding these constituencies, The Arc hopes that the Obama Administration will put its full force behind the enactment of this legislation.

Ohio diverts funds meant for special education

January 26th, 2010

By Jennifer Smith Richards, The Columbus Dispatch

Ohio school districts are spending money meant for disabled students to stabilize their shaky budgets, and the state has made it easier for them to do so.

Statewide, schools are receiving an extra $438 million in federal stimulus money just for special education. For most districts, the influx has doubled the federal dollars they received for special education.

Special-education advocates say vulnerable students are being cheated as the money is redirected, and that Ohio has taken the most extreme approach of any state that has paved the way for schools to use the money elsewhere.

“It just seems completely mind-blowing to me,” said Jennifer Cohen, a policy analyst at the Washington, D.C.-based New America Foundation. She tracks stimulus spending on education. “I think it’s sneaky, and I know there are a lot of special-education advocates out there who are upset about the implications.”

The law that allows districts to take from the fund isn’t new, but it’s been rarely used in Ohio. The federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act says that, in years where districts receive more special-education funding, they can reduce their local spending by up to 50 percent of the increase.

In essence, that allows schools to spend more local money on other needs.

In Ohio, only 8 percent of districts and charter schools were qualified to use the exception in past years, because schools were eligible only if they showed “adequate yearly progress” in special education.

But the Ohio Department of Education lowered the requirements last year. Now, 99 percent of Ohio’s 613 districts and 323 charter schools are eligible.

Ohio added flexibility for its schools even as the U.S. Secretary of Education urged against doing so. Districts don’t have to meet the federal progress goal to divert funds anymore, nor do they have to prove that special-needs students are being educated in the “least restrictive environment,” which often means in regular classrooms.

South-Western schools and eight other central Ohio districts are among the 113 statewide now diverting $22 million, often to plug holes in their operating budgets.

State records show that in Franklin County, Reynoldsburg and Upper Arlington also have redirected disabled-student funds. So have Big Walnut and Olentangy in Delaware County; Amanda-Clearcreek in Fairfield County; Licking Heights and Northridge in Licking County; and Madison-Plains in Madison County.

South-Western is shifting $2 million worth of special-education positions from its general fund to the new stimulus money over two years. That would not have been allowed under the previous rules, because additional money is typically supposed to add services.

South-Western, the state’s sixth-largest district, received $4.6 million in special-education stimulus dollars in addition to the $4 million it regularly receives. It reported to the state that 16 special-education jobs were created or retained as a result of its stimulus spending. The state Education Department says districts needed flexibility and that any money spent on general education also will benefit special-needs students.

“There are certain restrictions on how those dollars can be used. It’s not as if the districts are going to go out and build a football field or pave a parking lot with those funds,” said department spokesman Scott Blake.

It’s hard to understand why districts would want to spend the money anywhere but on their disabled students, said Margaret Burley, executive director of the Ohio Coalition for the Education of Children with Disabilities.

“For years, the school districts said they had to take money away from general education to pay for all the services that children with special needs had to have,” she said. “Now, you have a stimulus bill that almost doubles what the district was getting. You would think they would spend all of that money on children with special needs.”

Most disturbing, Burley said, are the implications that the spending reductions will have in the future.

Because federal special-education funding is based partly on how much local funding a district contributes, districts that have used the provision and now have lower levels of local funding dedicated to disabled students have set a new baseline for themselves. In other words, funding could be lower in years to come.

“Children with disabilities could lose in two ways. The local effort would be less, and the federal stimulus dollars will be gone,” Burley said.

Mother’s baby kidnapped by social workers: she’s deemed “not clever enough to raise a child”

January 25th, 2010

By Alison Smith Squire, Mail Online

A couple who fled to Ireland after social workers threatened to remove their baby at birth have had the newborn snatched after all.

Kerry Robertson, 17, who has mild learning difficulties, and Mark McDougall, 25, went on the run after British social services said she was not clever enough to raise a child.

But just four days after Ben was born, Irish social workers marched into the maternity ward and forced them to hand him over.

They were told they were acting at the behest of their British counterparts.

The couple, from Fife, Scotland, have been on the run for three months.

In September, their wedding was halted just 48 hours before the service when social workers claimed Miss Robertson was not bright enough to understand the marriage declaration.

Then in November they were told that her ‘disability’ meant their baby would be taken away at birth.

With Miss Robertson 29 weeks pregnant, they fled their house in the middle of the night and travelled to Ireland.

Ben was born healthy and weighing 7lb 3oz last Friday.

Last night Miss Robertson said: ‘When the Irish social workers said I had to give the baby to them, I felt sick.

‘I didn’t want to hand him over and I started crying because I couldn’t believe what they were saying. I thought I had misunderstood.

‘I had just been breastfeeding him.

Just before they took him away, I told Ben I loved him and gave him a kiss.’

Mr McDougall added: ‘Kerry let out a dreadful cry when she realised what was happening – it was terrible. She is just in pieces.

‘We believed that the Irish had more traditional values than social workers in the UK. We found a two-bedroom cottage in a beautiful village in Waterford overlooking the sea.

‘Kerry booked herself in with the local GP and at last we began to feel as if we were safe.’

An anonymous benefactor has been funding the couple after they left home with just £200, and has even paid for the house.

Artist Mr McDougall has also been selling pictures while friends and family have donated clothes, baby gear and further money.

Miss Robertson has been cared for by her grandmother since the age of nine months after her own parents were unable to look after her, with her care overseen by Fife Council.

She began getting contractions last Friday and the couple went to the local hospital, where she gave birth after a natural labour.

‘Both of us were overjoyed,’ said Mr McDougall. ‘Ben was absolutely perfect.’

But on Tuesday morning two Irish social workers – a man and a woman – came to the hospital and delivered the bombshell.

Mr McDougall added: ‘It seems that through Kerry’s medical records – although we have been on the run she has always ensured she had all the checks and scans on the baby – Fife Council had been alerted.

‘The social workers said that now Ben was born, Fife had put him on the at-risk register and he was subject to a care order.

As the social workers told us the news, the two midwives who have been caring for Kerry were so distressed that they fled the room.’

Ben is being cared for by foster parents.

Family law experts said that if Fife had genuine concerns about the baby it had a duty to pursue the couple even once they had fled its jurisdiction.

Under a 1980 European convention on child welfare, they would have contacted the Irish authorities to alert them and the Irish would then have sought an order from a judge allowing them to intervene.

Irish social workers now have to investigate for themselves and have until Monday to make a decision on the case or apply for an extension.

The couple have been allowed to see their son for two hours every other day.

Miss Robertson said: ‘Holding him made me upset all over again. I’ve told the social workers I don’t want him to have bottled milk or a dummy. I feel breastfeeding is so important and at least then he is still having some of me.’

Mr McDougall claimed the care order had the wrong baby’s name on it and the wrong date of birth. He added: ‘Kerry and I are now absolutely furious because we believe our baby has been kidnapped by social services.’

LibDem MP John Hemming, who has been supporting the couple, said: ‘There is no evidence that Mark and Kerry cannot be good parents and I just hope that the Irish authorities can resolve this as quickly as possible.’

The Irish authorities refused to comment last night.

Stephen Moore, executive director of social work at Fife Council, said: ‘I can confirm that although the Robertson family are not presently within Fife, we are committed to working closely with professional colleagues elsewhere to ensure safety and welfare of the child and indeed the whole family as this is of paramount concern to us.

‘I would urge Kerry to use all the support that is being made available to her and her baby and to get appropriate help should she need it.’

Abuse of people with disabilities doesn’t always result in charges

January 22nd, 2010

By Emily Ramshaw, The Texas Tribune

State employees fired for abusing Texas’ most profoundly disabled citizens are rarely prosecuted for their acts — even when they’re heinous.

A Texas Tribune review of a decade’s worth of abuse and neglect firings at state institutions for people with disabilities found that just 16 percent of the most violent or negligent employees were ever charged with crimes. Of those, the overwhelming majority had their charges reduced or dismissed; just three percent served jail time. Among the abusive employees who were never charged? An employee who punched and kicked a mentally disabled man, fracturing his ribs and lacerating his liver. An employee who sexually assaulted an immobile resident while he was giving him a bath. And a worker who used his belt to repeatedly whip a disabled resident across the face and mouth.

Elected officials, who have been under pressure from the U.S. Justice Department to improve conditions at Texas’ 13 state-supported living centers, say the lack of prosecutions is troubling — but that they can’t force local district attorneys to do it.

Meanwhile, local authorities say institutional abuse cases are particularly tough to prove. The victims often can’t verbalize what happened to them. The eyewitnesses are unreliable. And just because an act of abuse is a fireable offense doesn’t mean it rises to the level of criminal conduct or even gets reported to prosecutors.

Advocacy groups say the investigation suggests a breakdown between state abuse investigators and local authorities. It also confirms their worst fear: that there’s no equal justice for people with disabilities. Unless an abuse case receives widespread media attention, like last year’s “fight club” at the Corpus Christi State School, it rarely warrants criminal charges. “If you’re the most vulnerable citizen in Texas and you’re beaten mercilessly, your perpetrator is not held accountable,” said Jeff Garrison-Tate, whose non-profit Community Now! advocates for the nearly 4,600 disabled Texans living in state institutions. “This is what perpetuates a culture of abuse in this state.”

Roughly 300 state school employees are fired or suspended every year for abusing or neglecting residents in Texas’ state-supported living centers. Since 2000, about 75 employees have been fired for “Class 1 Abuse” — the most serious physical or sexual abuse. An extensive Texas Tribune search of county and state arrest records, indictments and other court filings revealed just 13 of these fired employees were ever charged with crimes for their acts. Of those, two served jail time. Three had their cases dismissed. And seven received lesser charges or deferred adjudication in a plea deal. One case is still pending.

One employee who was fired for inserting a hairbrush in a resident’s anus and fondling another resident’s breasts was never charged with a crime. Neither was a worker who beat a resident in the face because she wouldn’t be quiet. The woman had to be rushed to the emergency room for stitches. In another un-prosecuted case, a staffer slammed a resident face first into a door; the man sustained a head wound that required staples to close.

The Blame Game

Ask state agencies, local police and district attorneys why there are so few prosecutions and the finger pointing begins.

The Department of Aging and Disability Services oversees the state institutions and is responsible for firing abusive employees. But it doesn’t conduct abuse and neglect investigations — the Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) does it for them. Officials with DFPS say whenever they get an allegation of serious physical injury, sexual abuse or death, they contact local law enforcement within the hour. If their investigation concludes a crime may have been committed, they’re required to forward their investigative report to local authorities. But DFPS doesn’t track what happens next. And police departments say they don’t always get the reports from the state. In some cases they have opened their own investigations ahead of DFPS.

District attorneys who responded to the Texas Tribune’s interview request say they don’t always get the message — either from the state investigators or from police detectives. There’s a precedent here: During the Texas Youth Commission’s sweeping abuse scandal three years ago, thousands of un-prosecuted abuse complaints were found sitting in file folders in local police departments.

“We really like to prosecute the bad guys, the employees who pick on people in state institutions. There’s no problem there,” said Rob Kepple, executive director of the Texas District and County Attorneys Association. If the prosecutors aren’t pursuing cases, “I would surmise we’re either not getting them, or they don’t rise to the level of a criminal offense.”

Even when prosecutors do get the case files, they’re not always able to proceed. In some cases, they say, the act the employee was fired for doesn’t qualify as criminal conduct. In other cases, authorities don’t have the evidence or witnesses to prosecute. And occasionally, when a guilty verdict isn’t a sure bet, they don’t have the resources to make the effort. “Trying to determine who’s the guilty party, and being able to prove they were the ones who inflicted the injuries — that’s especially difficult when you have a victim who is incapacitated,” said Lubbock County District Attorney Matt Powell. The Lubbock County D.A.’s office has prosecuted more of these Class 1 offenders than any other Texas D.A.’s office. Added Taylor County District Attorney James Eidson:”By their nature, these are pretty much circumstantial cases, which is what makes them so difficult.”

And despite the fact that these abusive acts are committed by state employees, inside state-operated institutions, and against people who are sometimes wards of the state, Texas’ own attorney general doesn’t have the authority to step in. Following the 2007 TYC sexual abuse scandal, and revelations that a West Texas district attorney had failed to prosecute an abusive youth prison administrator, the attorney general’s office asked lawmakers for more authority to step in. Lawmakers responded by allowing state prosecutors to offer assistance to local prosecutors. But the attorney general’s office still can’t intervene to force a prosecution.

“The Legislature has not given the Office of the Attorney General authority to prosecute these cases,” said Jerry Strickland, a spokesman for Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott. “Only district attorneys have that authority.”

But advocates for the disabled say all of these explanations shroud the real reason abusive employees aren’t prosecuted: because their victims can’t demand it. Many are non-verbal or intellectually impaired. Most either don’t have families to advocate for them, or have out-of-town relatives poorly positioned to keep the pressure on local authorities. In short, advocates say, prosecutors know if they don’t make the effort, no one will hold them accountable.

“If someone saw me on the street kicking my dog, I would be in jail,” Garrison-Tate said. “But when a person with a significant disability in our state-operated, taxpayer-funded institutions is beaten, nothing happens to them.”

NCD calls for affordable & accessible housing for people with disabilities

January 20th, 2010

WASHINGTON, Jan. 19 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The National Council on Disability (NCD) today released a report titled The State of Housing in America in the 21st Century: A Disability Perspective that provides recommendations intended to improve housing opportunities for people with disabilities. This report looks at the state of housing for people with disabilities with the intent to provide recommendations that can improve housing opportunities. The research contained in this report provides a comprehensive overview of the state of housing in the twenty-first century and answers important questions about the current housing needs and options for people with disabilities living in the United States.

NCD undertook this study with three objectives in mind: 1) to evaluate public laws, policies, and program initiatives affecting the housing opportunities available to Americans with disabilities and others who have accessible housing needs for whatever reason, whether due to aging or a temporary disability; 2) to analyze what housing, supports, and other benefits are available through the public, nonprofit, and/or private sectors; and 3) to provide recommendations that can improve housing opportunities for people with disabilities in the United States.

According to NCD Chairperson Linda Wetters, “Affordable, accessible, and appropriate housing is critical and integral to making a community more livable for people with disabilities. In this report, NCD finds that there are unmet housing needs based solely on standard measures of housing affordability. This analysis also reveals a gap between current policy goals and outcomes — even with laws in place requiring a portion of units to be accessible, some developers and property owners do not comply. Whether it is due to ignorance or intent, the evidence suggests we have missed opportunities to increase the supply of accessible, affordable housing.”

The findings and recommendations contained in this document are grounded in data and research gathered from federal agencies, either directly or via published reports, and from research completed by academics and disability advocates. This report also provides evidence of what can be effective in meeting the range of housing needs among a diverse group of consumers with disabilities. This includes best and promising practices drawn from real examples, and lessons learned from experts working on housing issues and policy. In reviewing best and promising practices, data was triangulated from different sources — interviews, published reports, and Internet research — to assure a comprehensive assessment. To this end, the research has been reviewed and commented on by a diverse panel of experts and consumer groups that have all provided valuable insights and guidance.

Some of the recommendations include:

• Increase affordable, accessible, and integrated housing for people with disabilities to meet needs and demand.
• Increase access to existing units.
• Prevent further loss of affordable, accessible housing.
• Expand and focus usage of vouchers.
• Improve fair housing enforcement of disability rights.

The purpose of NCD, an independent federal agency, is to promote programs, practices, policies and procedures that ensure full inclusion of people with disabilities into all aspects of society. NCD accomplishes this mission by providing advice and making recommendations to the President, Congress, governmental agencies, and other stakeholders.

SOURCE National Council on Disability

Largest disabled-access settlement takes place in California

January 19th, 2010

By Lori Weisberg, San Diego Union-Tribune

In what is being called the largest disabled-access settlement in the housing industry, Chargers owner Alex Spanos’ development company will spend more than $12 million to retrofit thousands of apartment units found to be out of compliance with fair housing laws governing accessibility.

The settlement, announced yesterday, stemmed from a lawsuit filed more than two years ago by the National Fair Housing Alliance and four of its member organizations against the Stockton-based A.G. Spanos Cos. in which they alleged numerous violations under the federal Fair Housing Act. Covered under the settlement are 123 apartment properties in 11 states, including California, although none are in San Diego County.

The Spanos Cos. agreed to spend $7.4 million to retrofit 12,300 units over the next 36 months and to contribute $4.2 million over five years to a fund that will make grants to homeowners and renters who need to make their homes accessible. Those funds are meant to compensate for 41 Spanos-built complexes encompassing nearly 3,200 units that were too difficult to retrofit.

Proposed fixes for the bulk of the 12,300 units range from moving thermostats and light switches so they can be reached by those in wheelchairs, to widening doors and passageways, eliminating steps and putting in curb cuts.

In all, the settlement calls for an expenditure of nearly $15 million by the Spanos Cos., including $1.3 million in legal fees, $950,000 in compensatory damages, $750,000 to establish local retrofit funds and $100,000 to go toward a national media campaign to promote inclusive communities.

Alex Spanos, whose company originated in 1960 as A.G. Spanos Construction, has built more than 120,000 apartment units in 19 states. It wasn’t until 1984 that he acquired the San Diego Chargers. His sons Michael and Dean run the company.

The National Fair Housing Alliance yesterday lauded the developer for its cooperation in helping craft a settlement that went beyond the requirements of the Fair Housing Act.

“It’s unusual for me to praise defendants in a case,” said Shanna Smith, president of the alliance. “I’ve been doing this for 35 years, and we’ve had defendants who have said they would scorch the earth before they’d have a settlement with the Fair Housing Alliance. This is a landmark, unique, comprehensive settlement.”

In a statement released by the Spanos Cos., Executive Vice President Michael Spanos said the company is proud of the settlement.

“Shanna and I share the same goal: ensuring that people with disabilities enjoy equal access to housing,” the statement said. “And together we have established a powerful program to advance this goal, centered on our groundbreaking National Accessibility Fund. The people of the A.G. Spanos Companies and I look forward to working together with the National Fair Housing Alliance in the years to come.”

Michael Spanos was surprised to learn that the apartment complexes were out of compliance with regulations covering access for the disabled, said the company’s attorney, Michael Gurev.

“Spanos was shocked that there was a problem at all because he had hired architects and other professionals and had relied on their advice that (the buildings) were being built properly,” said Gurev, noting that only 10 percent of the complexes are now owned by the Spanos Cos. “They were also inspected by local officials and approved. Therefore, Spanos, when he learned of this issue, immediately took steps to address it.”

Until the Spanos case, the largest settlement was in 2005 and involved Archstone-Smith, a developer and operator of apartment complexes that was required to retrofit as many as 12,000 units in 71 complexes.

Before filing suit against the Spanos Cos., the NFHA and its members visited 35 of the developer’s projects that had been built since the Fair Housing Act’s accessibility rules became effective in 1991. The law requires that apartments and common areas be accessible to the disabled.

Chuck Hauptman, director of the regional office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity within the federal housing department, pointed out that settlements like the Spanos case should be a wake-up call to developers.

“The law has been on the books since 1988, and we’re still finding buildings built out of compliance,” Hauptman said.

Bore Winckel, chief executive of the San Diego County Building Industry Association, said there is no reason to believe the industry as a whole is not complying with accessibility requirements, but he said in some cases the regulations are excessive.

“You can retrofit or build to the Fair Housing Act all you want, but you tend to over-improve because most members of the public who have a disability are outnumbered by those who don’t need these improvements, so it’s difficult for builders to know what the demand is for accessibility in the common areas and in the units themselves,” Winckel said. “It’s very hard in this economy to justify making improvements to buildings, like ramps and elevators, that aren’t being used, and that’s the conflict.”

Smith noted that her organization is conducting investigations in a number of states, and those probes could result in more lawsuits. She said hefty penalties for violating the fair housing law are important.

“If the punishment is not substantial, people just keep going on with the practice of discrimination.” Smith said. “They just feel it’s just the cost of doing business. The Archstone settlement shook up the building industry. and this settlement will send another message to builders that you’ve got to do it right.”

UK plan fund to help people with disabilities become government officials

January 15th, 2010

Schwarzenegger plans to cut in-home care, forcing people out of their homes

January 15th, 2010

By Anita Creamer, The Sacramento Bee

Like his wife, Phyllis, Joe Saunders was born with cerebral palsy. But it took a car accident a couple of decades ago to leave Saunders, now 74, in a wheelchair, with limited use of his arms and legs, unable to continue working as a rehabilitation center counselor.

With the help of a caregiver from In-Home Supportive Services, the couple are able to remain in the small, fraying Woodlake home Saunders’ parents bought in the mid-1950s.

“This way, we maintain our dignity as citizens,” said Saunders. “I like my dignity. We’re in our own home. That’s not degrading. That’s what we call the golden years.”

The golden years are threatened, though. About 22,000 low-income elderly and disabled Sacramento County residents are in the middle of a fight over state finances.

As part of his budget plan, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed eliminating IHSS, the state’s fastest growing social services program, which pays caregivers to help the disabled and the frail elderly.

With the graying of the population, IHSS enrollment has soared, and so has its price. Founded in 1973, the program serves 400,000 Californians and will cost an estimated $1.5 billion this year.

Sacramento County spent $23.5 million on the program in 2009, up from $5.9 million in 2001.

Last year the governor also proposed eliminating the program, but a political and legal fight instead resulted in deep cuts.

With more cuts, or the program’s elimination, on the horizon, administrators are scrambling to find alternatives. So far they’ve found none.

“There isn’t anything being offered as an option. There are no options,” said Sharon Rehm, who helps manage IHSS in Sacramento County.

In part, said Sacramento County Senior and Adult Services division chief Bernadette Lynch, that’s because previous rounds of budget cuts have de-funded a network of services that could have helped IHSS clients.

Already on the list of slashed programs are adult day services, the Older Adult Resource Center and an Adult Protective Services program that trained mail carriers to watch out for vulnerable seniors living at home.

What’s more, Lynch said, the county’s senior nutrition program is set to lose funding on July 1.

“Maybe churches could step up in a minimal way, but they can’t step up for everybody,” said Lynch. “They can’t plug all the gaps.”

And nonprofits, still reeling from the recession’s negative effects on donations, won’t be able to plug the gaps, either, said Tim Hodson, executive director of the Center for California Studies.

“It was a myth to think that the nonprofit sector could replace government,” he said.

Without IHSS, many current clients would be forced to move to skilled nursing centers that accept Medi-Cal patients. At an average expense of $55,000 a year, nursing homes cost five times as much per IHSS client.

The number of skilled nursing center beds has dwindled through the years as IHSS’ success has grown at helping the elderly continue living independently, Rehm said.

Joe Saunders said he simply wants to stay in his own home with his wife and niece.

“It’s a delicate situation,” he said. “We’re at the end of our rope. And we’re part of the mass of people who have no say.”

At the Saunders home – which Joe and Phyllis share with their niece Sandy Gridley, 47, who suffers from brain damage and is under the Saunders’ conservatorship – caregiver Tara Smith arrives at 7:30 a.m. five days each week. First, she makes coffee and breakfast.

“I do laundry and make beds and go grocery shopping,” said Smith, 36, a former convalescent center aide who has worked for the family for three years and does everything from feeding Phyllis to helping the Saunderses in the bathroom. “I pay the bills and take them to the doctor. I make sure they’re clean. I’m here 11 hours a day.”

Phyllis Saunders, 73, can’t use her arms.

For all of this, Smith, a single mother of three, makes $10.40 an hour. On the weekends, the Saunderses’ son, Calvin, 47, takes over care duties.

More than 60 percent of IHSS caregivers are family members.

“It’s hard work,” Smith said. “If you’re caring for a relative, you still have to go to work and get money to take care of your own family. It makes sense to pay them for this.”

Dime-a-drink tax would help fund disability services

January 13th, 2010

Maryland lawmakers are ready to raise the tax on alcohol.  Members of the House and the Senate are expected to announce a new bill that would raise the tax by a dime-a-drink.

The money from the new tax would fund developmental disability services and mental health needs.

View the video here.

A father’s commitment

January 11th, 2010

By Saki Knafo, New York Times

George Kramer sat hunched on his stool behind the counter of the small hardware store on Coney Island Avenue, gazing out the window at the passing traffic. He was bundled up in a heavy sweater, a maroon wool cap folded above his ears. Toward the back of the store, beyond Mr. Kramer’s field of vision, Isaac Abraham was rifling through a cabinet. Mr. Abraham, the store’s owner for many years, knows Mr. Kramer about as well as anybody, and he was about to give a demonstration.

Quietly, he removed a faucet knob from the cabinet and hid it behind his back. Then he approached the counter and clapped it down with a flourish.

Mr. Kramer gave it a perfunctory glance. “Gerber,” he said.

“Gerber what?” asked Mr. Abraham.

“Ninety-nine, eleven fifty-one.”

Mr. Abraham turned over the package to show the catalog number: 99-1151. Mr. Kramer — George to me — is my second cousin, and he has worked at Kramer’s Hardware, in Flatbush, Brooklyn, for 58 years. He has a developmental disability, which is obvious to people who meet him, but he also has a rare and less apparent ability: Like the late Kim Peek, the inspiration for the film “Rain Man,” George, 71, has a powerful memory for dates and numbers and facts. If you tell him your birthday, he can tell you what day it will fall on two years in the future. He studies phone directories and atlases in his spare time. As one relative recently put it to me, “If you drop him in Oshkosh or anywhere, he’ll find his way home.”

On the surface, a run-down hardware shop in Flatbush might seem an odd place for a person like George to thrive. But if you set aside the sheets of pegboard and the metal cabinets and the key-making machine, what is left are hundreds and hundreds of small, obscure utilitarian objects, many almost identical to the casual observer. George can identify each nut and bolt and screw on sight, as Mr. Abraham’s test was intended to show, and he knows where, exactly, in the store it is kept. He can tell you its cost. And he can tell you the name — and often the phone number — of the company that made it.

His command of the inventory is such that Mr. Abraham has never had to invest in a computer to track it. “My reliance on him is mind-boggling,” Mr. Abraham said.

That reliance began with a favor. Thirty years ago, Mr. Abraham took over the store from George’s father, David Kramer, who was worried about his son’s future. Mr. Abraham agreed to keep George employed until George was ready to retire, and when he transferred the store to a new owner about a year ago, his successor did the same. These owners well know of George’s value to the business; still, the fact that David ensured such a secure future for his disabled son is as striking a feature of Kramer’s Hardware as George’s memory.

WHEN George was a child, his parents were told to put him in an institution. Though it’s not clear whether doctors gave him a precise diagnosis at that time, they said he would never be able to get along in society. His mother visited a couple of schools — including the Willowbrook State School on Staten Island, which later became notorious for its brutal treatment of residents — but ultimately they kept him at home. George’s younger brother, a copywriter in New Jersey, said George was eventually found to be mentally retarded but has not been examined for his disability since childhood.

In retrospect, the choice his parents made may seem like an obvious one, but it went against the prevailing wisdom of the day, and it also raised a difficult question for them: Who would support their son after they were gone?

David Kramer, whose father, Gdal, founded Kramer’s Hardware around 1930, started giving George small chores around the shop — moving the stock, taking out the garbage. According to the accounts of some of our relatives, George had been an unruly child, yet he proved an eager and reliable worker, and over time, his responsibilities multiplied.

Three decades passed and Mr. Abraham, then a young Brooklyn entrepreneur, began expressing an interest in acquiring the store. By this time — 1979 — David was thinking seriously about retirement. “He was ready to teach me the business,” Mr. Abraham recalled, “but there was a ‘but’ — and this was a big ‘but’ — he wanted to make sure that George would be secure.”

George was now 41. He handled the phones, dealt with customers and counted the cash at the end of the night, and had long ago committed to memory the catalog number for every eye bolt and corner brace and turnbuckle. David asked Mr. Abraham to hang around the shop for a few weeks, and at the end of that period he sat Mr. Abraham down and asked him a pointed question: “What about George?”

If David’s plan in requiring Mr. Abraham to spend time at the store had been to show him George’s value as an employee, it worked.

“I saw that George was an asset,” Mr. Abraham said. “In the medical terminology they might call him autistic, but I immediately called him a genius.”

Mr. Abraham promised David that he would never need to worry about his son, and he says he repeated the promise 12 years later, when David, on his deathbed, asked about George one last time.

“If I shine shoes on Broadway,” Mr. Abraham said he told him, “he’ll be shining shoes next to me.”

MR. Abraham has not had to resort to shining shoes, but his three decades owning the little neighborhood hardware store have not always been smooth. Kramer’s has narrowly survived several rough economic periods, and has contended with the arrival in Brooklyn of two huge competitors, Home Depot and Lowe’s, both of which have outlets within three miles of the store.

Through it all, George has been an ideal worker: honest (perhaps because he is incapable of lying), uncomplaining and extremely punctual.

His routine is as inflexible as a brass-plated wood screw. Every day, without fail, he arrives in the neighborhood by bus at 7 a.m., an hour before the store opens. Every day, he eats breakfast in one of two places — a restaurant called La Guadalupana Taqueria Mexicana, next to Kramer’s, or a Dunkin’ Donuts a few blocks away. And every day, regardless of which place he patronizes, he orders the same thing: a bagel with cream cheese, coffee and orange juice — “the combo.” George raises the store gates at exactly 8 a.m. Most of the customers are building superintendents, and as they trickle in, they greet him playfully: “Hey, George, did you miss me?” “How’s your girlfriend, George?” Much to their amusement, he answers straightforwardly, with little inflection. “Yes, my friend,” he might say, or “No,” or “I don’t know.”

At exactly 5 p.m., George lowers the gates and takes the bus down Coney Island Avenue to his home. He lives in one of several Brooklyn residences run by the Adult Retardates Center, a group for people with developmental disabilities that his parents helped found in the 1950s. He eats dinner with the other residents at 5:15, showers at 8 and goes to bed at exactly 11. His weekends are similarly scheduled, with visits to the Young Israel synagogue on Avenue J and to a recreational center — “the Club” — where he plays games, drinks Diet Cokes and dances with his companion of 21 years, who lives in one of the group’s other residences.

Every year George sends out dozens of birthday cards to relatives; every year he calls to make sure the card has arrived on time. At family gatherings, which he begins talking about months in advance, he insists on taking a picture of every person at the table. His photo albums contain the most comprehensive record of my family that there is — thousands of unevenly framed snapshots documenting decades of Seders and Thanksgivings.

And yet, as devoted as George is to these routines, it is difficult to say exactly why he performs them or how they affect him. He seldom makes eye contact. Hardly anyone has seen him laugh, or cry, and although he is often pronouncing things (mostly restaurants) good or bad — “Garden of Eat-In on Avenue J! That’s good!” — it is hard to know whether he is expressing genuine feelings or repeating opinions picked up from others.

Most of the time, he is quiet. When he speaks, it is often to blurt out some phrase that has no apparent relevance. Only when he is pressed does it become clear that these utterances do, in fact, have meaning. “April 5th Monday night!” he shouted out one afternoon in December, prompting a request for an explanation. “I have to go shul April 5th,” he replied. “Mommy’s yahrzeit. That’s important. But electric bulbs only. No candles in the house. That’s dangerous.”

Jews commemorate the anniversary of a person’s death, the yahrzeit, by lighting a candle or a ceremonial light bulb and reciting the mourner’s Kaddish during daily prayers. George’s mother died in 1985 and his father in 1991.

He is the only member of the family who still marks their memory this way.

TO the extent George does engage in conversation, much of that conversation centers on the past. “I’m reading a book about Ansonia clock factory on 420 13th Street,” he announced at the store one time. “Who lived there? Pop Kramer and Mom Kramer lived there.”

Another time he got into an excited discussion with a customer over the pedigree of a local apartment building. George was excited, that is. The customer, a super, didn’t quite share his enthusiasm.

“1620 Caton. Is it the big building?” asked George.

“George!” said the super. “Write down 1620 and that’s it.”

“1620 Caton Avenue,” George persisted. “I remember that building used to be Waxman brothers!”

When George declares that the Waxman brothers owned this or that building, or that so-and-so lived at this or that address, it often seems as if he is rattling off an arbitrary, inconsequential piece of trivia. But these pieces of trivia, put together, form a jigsaw-puzzle picture of a world that exists more vividly in George’s mind than perhaps anywhere else.

In the many years that George has worked at Kramer’s, Brooklyn has transformed around it: high-rises have shot up, new immigrant populations have swept in, and most of the people who grew up with him have died or moved to the suburbs. Old businesses are forever “going out,” in George’s phrase, and he announces the passing of each with a staccato shout: “Brandz for Less 1351 Coney Island Avenue is going out December 31st!” “Bargain Hunters 1605 Avenue M closed up for good!”

Amid all these closings and openings, George appears to have changed relatively little. He observes a host of customs that his parents taught him years ago, and many of the obscure facts that preoccupy him have been preoccupying him for ages. Even the store is sort of a time capsule. Almost all of its products were bought years back, from companies that no longer exist. Piled on the shelves in the rear are boxes and boxes of screws and bolts with old-fashioned labels reading “Sturdy Nut and Bolt Co., New York, N.Y.” and “Universal Screw and Bolt Co., N.Y. N.Y., U.S.A.,” relics from the city’s industrial past.

At 71, though, George is slowing down. Mr. Abraham said that he did not expect him to last in the job much longer. “How long can he do it physically?” he said. “There were times two years ago where he wasn’t very well and I was under the full assumption that he was not going to make it back.”

The business is slower, too. Perhaps because of the recession, the flow of customers is more like a trickle. The shelves are half empty, and the bottles of cleaning fluid are covered with dust. George typically spends a good part of each day sitting at the counter and leafing through hardware and restaurant supply catalogs, and occasionally reeling off facts about the various companies whose names are displayed on passing trucks (“Driscoll Foods! Clifton, New Jersey!”).

Change has arrived at Kramer’s in one other way as well. Mr. Abraham, who had long served as an unelected advocate for Brooklyn’s Hasidic community, embarked in 2008 on a campaign for City Council. He ultimately lost, to Stephen Levin, but when he began his time-consuming bid, he handed off the business to a new owner, a 36-year-old friend of the family named Moshe Meyerson.

So, what about George? Where did this transition leave him? Mr. Meyerson, noting how long George has been at Kramer’s Hardware, said, “He’s going to be there until he retires.” Given George’s age, Mr. Meyerson added, he imagined that might happen in three or four years.

When I brought up the prospect of retirement with George, he told me that he, too, had been giving it some thought. But when I asked what he might do with his time, all he said was, “I don’t know yet.”

He was facing away as he spoke, toward the store window, with its charmless view of Coney Island Avenue and the auto-body shops and apartment buildings beyond. As usual, it was impossible to know what he was thinking. Nevertheless, it seems likely that, someday soon, he will wake in the morning and have no gates to open, no customers to greet, no shovels or wrenches or Gerber faucets to sell. All of it will be gone.

But not forgotten.