VOR Seeks Moratorium on Deinstitutionalization Lawsuits
December 21
Concerned About Deaths of Intellectually Disabled Individuals,
National Organization Calls for Moratorium on Deinstitutionalization Lawsuits
VOR, a national advocacy organization representing people with intellectual disabilities and their families, today asked Members of Congress in several states to call for a moratorium of federally-funded deinstitutionalization lawsuits.
“Protection & Advocacy and Department of Justice lawsuits have forced people with severe intellectual disabilities from their specialized homes and into smaller, unlicensed settings that are too-often not prepared to handle people with such severe degrees of intellectual disability,” said Tamie Hopp, VOR’s Director of Government Relations & Advocacy.
VOR’s call for a moratorium was prompted by the New York Times reporting of tragic preventable deaths of hundreds of people in New York group homes. Specifically, the Times found that “One in six of all deaths in state and privately run group homes [in New York], or more than 1,200 in the past decade, has been attributed to either unnatural or unknown causes. (“1,200 Deaths and Few Answers,” November 6, 2011).
“The silence by federal agencies in response to these deaths is deafening,” said Hopp. “Not only have P&A and DOJ done little if anything in response to these deaths, which numbered more than a 100 per year over 10 years, they have continued their ideological warfare on larger Medicaid-licensed and funded ICFs/MR.”
