[NYAPRS Enews] LG: NYS Council Develops Plan to Integrate People w Disabilities into Community

[Matt Canuteson]

NYAPRS Note: NYAPRS congratulates Governor Paterson and his chair of the
state's Most Integrated Setting Coordinating Council (MISCC) Diana Jones
Ritter for their strong leadership in bringing the MISCC significantly
closer to meeting its authorized mission to develop a data-driven state
plan detailing how relevant agencies will help support New Yorkers with
disabilities to live and work in their communities of choice. 

At Monday's MISCC meeting, state agencies disclosed unprecedented
information about the numbers of people with disabilities they're
currently supporting in the continuum of segregated to most integrated
settings, for how long and at what cost. Commissioner Ritter also
described a timeline going forward that will produce New York's first
detailed MISCC plan (previously the MISCC has issued several general
vague and inconclusive reports). 

The meeting also featured an impressive commitment by Health
Commissioner Richard Daines to promote efforts to accelerate the hiring
of people with disabilities in the vast health care settings his agency
helps shape, as well as a number of positive commitments by DHCR
Commissioner Deborah van Amerongen, OASAS Commissioner Karen
Carpenter-Palumbo, SOFA Commissioner Michael Burgess, OMH Special
Assistant to the Commissioner John Allen, VESID's Rebecca Cort and
others.

During the Public Comment section, there were numerous statements of
support for a data driven MISCC plan as well as calls for the Governor
to accept and not appeal the recent federal ruling relating to the
community integration of New York City-based adult home residents by a
broad array of advocates ranging from New York City's Community Access,
Buffalo's Mental Health Peer Connection, Newburgh's Independent Living,
several adult home residents associated with the Coalition of Aged
Institutionalized and Disabled and by numerous members of the greater
cross disability community.

Representatives from ADAPT and the NYS Association on Independent Living
also assailed the Governor's recent vetoes over legislation that would
have required state law to conform with existing federal requirements
under the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Help America Vote Act
(HAVA) and expressed grave concerns about the impact of potential cuts
to home care services. 

Following is a recent new account of the meeting and a letter from the
public members of the MISCC congratulating Paterson on the MISCC's
progress and urging him to accept and not appeal the adult home resident
court ruling.

 

Council For Integrating Disabled Persons Into The Community Developing
2010-2011 Plan

By Priya Ravindran, Legislative Gazette   October 6, 2009

 

A council authorized by the Legislature in 2002 to come up with a plan
to move disabled people from institutions into the community held a
meeting to discuss the format of a plan that will enable disabled people
to receive proper care in the settings that they choose.

 

The state's Most Integrated Setting Coordinating Council, met with
advocates for disabled people Monday to discuss the format and layout
for the 2010 plan to integrate people with disabilities into more
independent community settings.

 

The goal of the council members, as well as members of the audience, is
to come up with a solid plan to make the move from institutions to
private homes in the most efficient way possible. Members of the council
also discussed data received about revenue being spent on housing,
employment and transportation of disabled people.

 

Diana Jones Ritter, chair of the council and commissioner of the New
York state Office of Mental Retardation and Disabilities, said each
agency that is part of the council was asked to identify three
priorities for the 2010 plan regarding employment, housing and
transportation, which will be sent to her by Oct. 26 for consideration
into the plan.

 

The most important priority for the council is to ensure that Gov. David
A. Paterson does not appeal a recent federal district court ruling that
said the state violated the American Disabilities Act by housing more
than 4,000 people in approximately 25 adult homes in New York City.

 

Harvey Rosenthal, executive director of the New York Association of
Psychiatric Rehabilitation, said advocates have wanted to see data about
how the money is being spent to facilitate progress of disabled people
from institutions to more integrated settings.

 

"This is the closest we've gotten to data and seeing a plan of action,"
Rosenthal said.

 

The meeting concluded with stories as to why it is necessary to move
mentally disabled into more comfortable, community settings. People who
have lived in institutions before, relatives of those who live in one
and members of organizations such as the Coalition of the
Institutionalized, Aged, and Disabled and ADAPT shared their personal
stories.

 

MISCC consists of members of 10 state agencies and nine appointed public
representatives.

 

http://www.legislativegazette.com/day_item.php?item=1139 

--------------

 

Governor David Paterson
October 5, 2009

Executive Chamber

NYS Capitol

Albany, New York 12224


 

Dear Governor Paterson,

 

We write to you as public members of the state's Most Integrated Setting
Coordinating Council (MISCC) which was legislatively authorized in 2002.
The MISCC came into existence out of a finding that "New York  state
has no  centralized mechanism in place to determine whether or not
people of all ages with disabilities are residing in the most
integrated  setting  possible." The central purpose of the MISCC has
been to ensure that the state "develop and implement a plan to
reasonably accommodate the desire of people of all ages with
disabilities to avoid institutionalization and be appropriately placed
in the most integrated setting possible."

 

After seven years of effort, the MISCC seems poised under your
leadership to, at long last, facilitate the development of such a plan.
We are writing to insist that this crucial plan must include a remedy
for the inappropriate, unethical and, according to federal Judge
Nicholas Garaufis' recent ruling, unlawful segregation of thousands of
New Yorkers with psychiatric disabilities in adult homes. 

 

On several occasions, representatives from the adult home resident
community have appeared before the MISCC pleading for state agency
action and for a fundamental overhaul of previous state policy that
unacceptably warehoused thousands into these inappropriate institutional
settings. Up to now, their calls have gone unanswered. As New York's
first Governor with a disability, we urge you to take this opportunity
to respond to them with the strong leadership that our disability
community requires and deserves. 

 

We urge you to accept and not appeal the Court's ruling. We call on you
to charge your agencies to work collaboratively to bring justice and an
appropriately supported and integrated life in the community for the
adult home residents. We look forward to a state Olmstead Plan that
features this remedy and pledge our full efforts to support it as a
necessary component of the comprehensive Plan to move people of all ages
with disabilities into the most integrated settings possible.

 

Sincerely,

 

Harvey Rosenthal, Constance Laymon, Kimberly Hill, Patricia Fratangelo,
Karen Oates

Public Members, NYS Most Integrated Setting Coordinating Council

 

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