People as Pendulums: Deinstitutionalization and People with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities
By Tamie Hopp, VOR Director of Government Relations & Advocacy in Nonprofit Quarterly, July 16, 2014 (and reprinted in the Summer 2014 Nonprofit Quarterly Print edition)
Early reforms were quite properly motivated by the need for a system of care and supports that responded to the very individualized and diverse needs of the entire population of people with I/DD. These reforms, however, also set the stage for decades of ongoing deinstitutionalization, resulting in the elimination of specialized housing, employment and education options for people with I/DD, leaving some to question the price of “progress.”
The Pendulum Swings
Even though initial reforms were motivated by a lack of service options (an over-reliance on the ICF/IID program), it was not long before efforts to “rebalance” our system of care shifted from the expansion of options to the dramatic reduction of ICFs/IID and other specialized options.
In 1999, the Supreme Court handed down its landmark Olmstead v. L.C. decision, which should have settled the deinstitutionalization debate.
