Inclusion Daily Express -- Community Advocates Oppose Plan To Build 50-Acre 'Village'

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Community Advocates Oppose Plan To Build 50-Acre 'Village'
By Dave Reynolds, Inclusion Daily Express
January 2, 2008

OMAHA, NEBRASKA--Nebraska's Beatrice State Developmental Center has been in the news lately because of ongoing problems with abuse and neglect of residents that have intellectual disabilities.

Last month, the US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services notified Nebraska officials that the federal government would withhold about $28 million from the state if conditions at BSDC, which houses about 320 people, were not improved by the end of February. That same week, Nebraska Advocacy Services reported that the facility investigated 220 allegations of abuse, 86 of which were later substantiated, in the first nine months of this year. Those included twenty-two cases in which residents were found to have sustained broken bones.

Some parents have proposed an alternative to BSDC: A privately owned, 50-acre residential campus that would house about 200 adults.

According to the website of the project, named "Nebraska Village of Promise", the campus "will be a national model that can be duplicated across the United States."

Each Village home would house up to eight people, the website notes. The campus would have recreational, dining, and employment opportunities at small businesses on the campus, including a retail district "similar to a small town main street and open to the outside community."

Advocates for community living are criticizing the project, saying that it means going back to segregated, institutional living for people with disabilities -- something that advocates have been battling for decades. Even the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that institutionalizing people because of their disabilities violates their rights.

Some advocates are saying the money to build and operate the Village would be better spent by investing in real homes and supports in the community.

"It has taken a long time to break the idea of thinking (that) people need to be with their own kind or set apart," Patricia McGill Smith, president of the Arc of Nebraska, told the Omaha World-Herald. "I applaud (Village of Promise organizers) for working hard and thinking about helping their children, but don't use the old model."

Related:
"Housing for developmentally disabled stirs debate" (Omaha World-Herald)
http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=2798&u_sid=10208229
Nebraska Village of Promise
http://villageofpromise.org

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