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���������� Note: As a federal appeals court overturns a judge’s order requiring NYS to provide apartments for 4,500 NYC residents who’ve been confined in institutionalizing adult homes, Governor Cuomo has the opportunity to bring his considerable power to this decades old stalemate.

It shouldn’t take a court order to bring long awaited justice to thousands of ����������ers whose road to recovery and independence out of state hospitals got stranded in the dead end of long time confinement in adult homes that were not designed for them, but were convenient places to put them.

In a few short years, Governor Cuomo has righted many wrongs, succeeding where many before have failed in moving past long entrenched stalemates. In his state of the state this past year, he made an impassioned commitment to move state disability policy forward to improve care and ensure that ����������ers with disabilities would be afforded their full rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Olmstead Supreme Court ruling to live in the most integrated community setting.

This year’s approved budget contains $16.8 million to move them out.

We appear to have the right leadership, the money and the right time to bring justice to adult home residents. We shouldn’t need a court order to do right by them this year.

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Appeals Court Reverses Judge’s Order Creating Thousands of Homes in NY for Mentally Ill People

By Associated Press April��6, 2012

NEW YORK – A federal appeals court on Friday reversed a judge’s order making the state provide apartments and small homes to thousands of mentally ill people, questioning the scope of the order and delaying a resolution to a controversy that even the court acknowledged will continue.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said the Albany-based plaintiff – Disability Advocates Inc. – lacked standing to bring the claim because it was a non-membership organization with limited interaction with the people it claimed to represent. The nonprofit is contracted to provide services to ����������’s Protection and Advocacy System.

The ruling takes the 9-year-old case back to the starting block on an issue that is being grappled with by several other states, including Connecticut and Illinois.

Lawyers for Disability Advocates, which filed its lawsuit in 2003 against ����������’s governor and various state agencies, did not immediately return messages seeking comment. Messages sent to lawyers representing the state also were not immediately returned.

The ruling negates a 2010 order by U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis in Brooklyn calling for the state to create 1,500 housing units in ���������� City over three years, enabling people to leave group homes and live in homes scattered throughout the city.

Garaufis had ruled that the state must provide services to the disabled “in the most integrated setting appropriate to their needs,” enabling them to interact with people who aren’t disabled as much as possible.

The judge said Disability Advocates had proven in a bench trial that virtually all its constituents were qualified to live in “supported housing,” including apartments where they could continue to receive needed services.

Although the appeals court tossed out the case without addressing challenges to the merits of Garaufis’ ruling, it said the appeals judges “do have concerns about the scope of the proposed remedy” and it acknowledged that the U.S. government has already said it would re-file the lawsuit if Disability Advocates was removed from the case.

The appeals court said the private nonprofit agency, which it repeatedly referred to as “DAI,” could not sue over violations of the Protection and Advocacy for Mentally Ill Individuals Act of 1986, created to protect the rights of individuals with mental illness. The court also rejected an effort by the U.S. government to join the case six years after it began.

“Tellingly, there is scant evidence in the record that the individuals with mental illness whom DAI purports to represent have the power to elect its directors, make budget decisions, or influence DAI’s activities or litigation strategies,” the appeals court wrote. “Finally, the record does not establish that DAI ever notified its ‘constituents’ or any of their legal guardians that it was filing this suit purportedly on their behalf.”

The 2nd Circuit said Disability Advocates could still provide representation to individuals with mental illness and litigate those cases in the names of those individuals but could not bring a lawsuit on behalf of the entire class.

And the court added: “We are not unsympathetic to the concern that our disposition will delay the resolution of this controversy and impose substantial burdens and transaction costs on the parties, their counsel, and the courts.”

The litigation has put in the spotlight the adult home system that emerged nationwide after people with mental illness in the 1960s and 1970s were moved out of large, regimented institutions. ���������� moved most patients out of state-run psychiatric hospitals, settling them into community or profit-making adult homes.

According to the court documents, the state has 380 adult homes; ���������� City has 44. Some house more than 120 to 200 people.

During the trial, witnesses testified that the large homes were sometimes more restrictive than the mental institutions they replaced. They told of lines of 200 residents waiting for medications and residents having virtually no privacy. In addition, witnesses said, the homes foster “learned helplessness” because residents are not allowed to cook, clean, do laundry or manage their own finances.

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Court Rejects Order for Mentally Ill Housing in NY

By LARRY NEUMEISTER��The Associated Press�� April 6, 2012

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NEW YORK – A federal appeals court on Friday reversed a judge’s order making the state provide apartments and small homes to thousands of mentally ill people, questioning the scope of the order and delaying a resolution to a controversy that even the court acknowledged will go on.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said the Albany-based plaintiff – Disability Advocates Inc. – lacked standing to bring the claim because it was a non-membership organization with limited interaction with the people it claimed to represent. The nonprofit is contracted to provide services to ����������’s Protection and Advocacy System.

The ruling takes the 9-year-old case back to the starting block on an issue faced by several other states, including Connecticut and Illinois.

Disability Advocates Executive Director Cliff Zucker said his organization will try to negotiate with state officials “to end the unnecessary institutionalization of adult home residents.”

“We will work with ���������� to solve this problem, hopefully without the need for future litigation,” he said, though he left open the possibility that the case could be filed again as a class action.

Disability Advocates filed its lawsuit in 2003 against ����������’s governor and various state agencies. Messages sent to lawyers representing the state were not immediately returned.

The ruling negates a 2010 order by U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis in Brooklyn calling for the state to create 1,500 housing units in ���������� City over three years, enabling people to leave group homes and live in homes scattered throughout the city.

Garaufis had ruled that the state must provide services to the disabled “in the most integrated setting appropriate to their needs,” enabling them to interact with people who aren’t disabled as much as possible.

The judge said Disability Advocates had proven in a bench trial that virtually all its constituents were qualified to live in “supported housing,” including apartments where they could continue to receive needed services.

Although the appeals court tossed out the case without addressing challenges to the merits of Garaufis’ ruling, it said the appeals judges “do have concerns about the scope of the proposed remedy” and it acknowledged that the U.S. government has already said it would re-file the lawsuit if Disability Advocates was removed from the case.

The appeals court said the private nonprofit agency, which it repeatedly referred to as “DAI,” could not sue over violations of the Protection and Advocacy for Mentally Ill Individuals Act of 1986, created to protect the rights of individuals with mental illness. The court also rejected an effort by the U.S. government to join the case six years after it began.

“Tellingly, there is scant evidence in the record that the individuals with mental illness whom DAI purports to represent have the power to elect its directors, make budget decisions, or influence DAI’s activities or litigation strategies,” the appeals court wrote. “Finally, the record does not establish that DAI ever notified its ‘constituents’ or any of their legal guardians that it was filing this suit purportedly on their behalf.”

The 2nd Circuit said Disability Advocates could still provide representation to individuals with mental illness and litigate those cases in the names of those individuals but could not bring a lawsuit on behalf of the entire class.

And the court added: “We are not unsympathetic to the concern that our disposition will delay the resolution of this controversy and impose substantial burdens and transaction costs on the parties, their counsel, and the courts.”

The litigation has put in the spotlight the adult home system that emerged nationwide after people with mental illness in the 1960s and 1970s were moved out of large, regimented institutions. ���������� moved most patients out of state-run psychiatric hospitals, settling them into community or profit-making adult homes.

According to the court documents, the state has 380 adult homes; ���������� City has 44. Some house more than 120 to 200 people.

During the trial, witnesses testified that the large homes were sometimes more restrictive than the mental institutions they replaced. They told of lines of 200 residents waiting for medications and residents having virtually no privacy. In addition, witnesses said, the homes foster “learned helplessness” because residents are not allowed to cook, clean, do laundry or manage their own finances.

In his release, Zucker included a comment from 64-year-old Margueritte Wilkens, who is living in a group home after health problems interrupted her career as a health educator for community health centers in ���������� City.

“I’m very disappointed about the decision,” she said. “I had high hopes of returning to a normal life in the community.”

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