Rebecca Peeler
A small group of parents, health care workers and union representatives from Civil Service Employees Associations gathered outside Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s midtown Manhattan officeon Nov. 17 to protest state cuts to facilities that help developmentally disabled people.
The state Office for People with Developmental Disabilities announced in 2013 that four centers will be closed within three years because of budget cuts. These include facilities upstate as well as in Queens and Brooklyn. Advocates are urging Cuomo and state officials to stop the closures and to reinvest in these facilities as well as people who work there.
Among the group of about 14 protesters were Rick and Sandy Williams, who drove three hours from upstate Binghamton. They wore yellow t-shirts emblazoned with a large red stop sign that read “Stop Broome Developmental Center’s Reckless Closure” and “Freeze Unsafe Closures Now Act!” Their 34-year-old son, Ryan, who is blind, and can’t speak, has been living in state-operated home since he was 2. He learned how to walk and feed himself there, his mother said.
“As a taxpayer I’m outraged,” said Rick Williams. “They keep taking and taking services away. It’s part of an agenda and I won’t accept it.”
Sandy Williams said she fears for her son’s well-being because the cutbacks mean not only closed facilities but also the loss of trained staffed members.
Matthew D’Amico, representing the civil service union, said the administration’s strategy to close state-run facilities and their push to place the disabled into non-profit organizations and community homes will severely affect the quality of care. These developmental centers are funded through Medicaid and uprooting residents will not only disrupt their care but will also decrease their access to resources, he said.
“These care takers work in dangerous environments,” said D’Amico. “They take care of the hardest to handle.”
“It takes a very special person to take care of these people,” said Jamagne King, a caregiver for almost 20 years who works at the Bernard Fineson Center in Queens which is scheduled to close in 2017. She doesn’t know where patients and workers will go.
Another parent, Tony Cosentino, 73, of Brooklyn, said he was worried about his son John, 51, who has been under the care of Brooklyn Developmental Center for 37 years. John Cosentino is autistic, nonverbal, blind in his left eye and intellectually developmentally disabled. Cosentino said his son needs to wear a helmet and gloves in order to prevent self injuries. The center, with 23 patients, is scheduled to close at the end of the year.
A mother from White Plains, Mary Duntin, in her early 60s, said the cuts have meant closure of workshops for the developmentally disabled that gave her 24-year-old son an opportunity to learn a skill where he could work for a small pension. Her son has been diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder, autism, Down syndrome and has severe food allergies.
“There’s no care,” she said. Disabled people like her son are “being treated like merchandise.”
Others at the protest said that families would not be the only ones affect by the closure. Jacque Williams-Matthews works as the union’s treasurer and as a health care provider. She said that shutting down these facilities can be dangerous to the community because some of these patients have a violent history.
“Some people are not equipped to live outside these centers,” she said. “Some of them are sex offenders and now they are out in community dispersed in neighborhoods or in jail.”
But for the parents, the real victims are their children. People with disabilities “are the most venerable people,” said Sandy Williams. “Our son would die. State-operated centers save lives.”