Despite a series of allegations that include sex assaults, neglect, civil rights violations and mismanagement at state-run group homes for adults with developmental disabilities, some Colorado legislators say they are pleased with changes the controversies have helped spur.
A letter signed by 84 legislators in May in the Department of Human Services, citing regional center group homes in Pueblo, Wheat Ridge and Grand Junction as a top concern.
But lawmakers are taking heart now, after management changes.
After an alleged s at the Wheat Ridge Regional Center in July, 367 people — guardians, advocates and others — calling for the firing of the center’s director, Angela York, over concerns about staffing shortages, morale and responsiveness to complaints.
DHS let York go Aug. 14 but said the petition, delivered four days earlier, had no bearing on the decision.
Problems emerged earlier at the Pueblo Regional Center. In a search for neglect and abuse there in March, DHS officials conducted what has been characterized as either “strip searches” or, more favorably, “body checks” on 62 residents without the consent of their guardians.
Since the problems in Pueblo surfaced in April, the director there, . In July, Viki Manley, who oversaw the regional centers at the agency’s top level, was forced out.
Those were the kind of changes legislators were talking about, not necessarily the firing of DHS executive director Reggie Bicha, said Sen. Kent Lambert, R-Colorado Springs.
“We’ve lost two out of the three directors and the organizer, and guess what, that’s kind of what the legislative letter was about,” he said. “It was to say your middle management has some problems here. Well, now we have a new middle management, don’t we?”
Made a scapegoat?
York said she was made a scapegoat.
She says that when she was fired as the director of the Wheat Ridge Regional Center, she was told she didn’t play well in the “civic climate,” which York translates to mean she wouldn’t shut up about problems she discovered when she took the job a year ago.
The regional center problems that she cited included nepotism, disregard for safety and quality-assurance training, and unqualified staffers she thought were underperforming.
“It’s the most corrupt system I’ve ever seen in my life,” York said.
Sarah Aurich, acting director of the DHS Office of Community Access and Independence, declined to discuss the specifics of York’s departure or her allegations against the agency.
“I think, just at a high level, it was a matter of it being a time for the department to go in a different direction with Wheat Ridge,” Aurich said.
Some guardians are concerned the state is pushing to close the homes, forcing their loved ones to find new places to live.
Downsizing the regional centers and closing some of the group homes has been a mission of the state since 1999, after the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling. That same year, DHS presented a white paper on “downsizing initiatives” for the group homes. The number of people in Colorado’s group homes has been nearly cut from about 2,000 in the 1960s to 263 now.
Bicha has said the state will have to maintain facilities for those who have nowhere else to go, and it’s not his mission to close the regional centers.
He said that, ultimately, he hopes he is graded by how he handles the regional centers’ problems.
“When there are problems in the programs I operate, I confront them head-on, we get to the root source of the problem and we put in solutions that correct the problems,” Bicha said.
A Regional Center Task Force is working on a report due by the end of the year about how the centers should be operated to ensure that only those who must remain in the state’s care are living in the group homes, instead of a privately run facility.
The report will provide recommendations on staffing, the maximum number of residents and “if one or more regional centers should be closed,” according to the of legislators, advocates and guardians of those in the homes.
“It’s supposed to be strategic, long-range recommendations back to the legislature,” said Lambert, a task force member. “But as we’ve gotten into all these issues, we find the day-to-day issues keep cropping up.”
Worried guardians
Parents and guardians of residents in Wheat Ridge and Pueblo say they’re concerned the management issues will only fuel efforts to close some or all of the facilities.
Lynne Parker Crooks said her autistic 46-year-old son, James, has previously been assessed at a level to which he could be moved from the Wheat Ridge center to a private facility, but Crooks said no private facility could handle his frequent outbursts.
“I’ve told them if they try to move him out, it’s a violation of his civil rights and his human rights,” she said.
The turnover in staff has been hard on the residents, she and other guardians said.
Crooks said her son has acted out in frustration and caused property damage five times in the past two months with the turnover of staff and moving new residents in his home to accommodate the shortages.
Mary Vigil is a former nurse at the Wheat Ridge Regional Center and took over as legal guardian for an older resident when there was no family.
She said that as efforts to downsize or close the facilities has ramped up, the level of care has slid down.
Vigil worries James Castro, who has a long list of health problems, including seizures, isn’t getting the attention he needs from people who have the experience with him to understand the “cues and clues” of when he is in distress.
“Some of these parents have been fighting this since their children were born. I’ve only been doing it for 20 years,” Vigil said. “The last few years has almost killed me.”
Joey Bunch: 303-954-1174, jbunch@denverpost.com or twitter.com/joeybunch
