Disabled Sue to Block Cutbacks for Care Centers : Social services: If the state withholds $2.7 million from the Department of Developmental Services, 700 facilities statewide may close, lawyers say.

Lawyers for severely mentally and physically disabled Californians living in residential treatment facilities have filed suit in Sacramento County Superior Court to prevent the state from cutting payments to these facilities.

The attorneys contend that 700 facilities statewide--or about 15% of the 5,000 community-based homes for disabled Californians--may close if $2.7 million in state funds is withheld by the state Department of Developmental Services.

Such closure would leave up to 3,300 people with no alternative but institutionalization, the lawyers said Thursday at news conferences in Los Angeles and Sacramento.

The $2.7 million would have preserved the current level of funding for these facilities, which are slated to get less money beginning Jan. 1. The money was in the department’s budget, but became a casualty of last-minute cuts by Gov. George Deukmejian last summer.

Department Director Gary D. Macomber, however, said he does not believe the reduction is significant enough to force any facilities to close. He also noted that, while the 700 facilities may face cuts, 85% of the community homes in California will actually receive more money under the new funding formula.

Macomber added that legislation currently in the Senate may make the whole dispute moot.

“I don’t know of any facility that has sent 30-day notices of closure to clients, as the law requires them to do, and I have had assurances from responsible providers that they have no intention of closing,” Macomber said.

The people who live in these facilities are mentally disabled by autism, retardation and other conditions that make it impossible for them to live on their own or with their families. They are not so disabled, however, as to require care in one of the state’s seven institutions for the mentally disabled.

The class-action lawsuit, filed last week, invokes the 1977 Lanterman Developmental Disabilities Services Act, the goal of which was to get as many people as possible out of the institutions. The act mandates “the least-restrictive living arrangement” for mentally disabled people, according to Steven A. Marenberg of Los Angeles, a lawyer for the plaintiffs.

The suit seeks an injunction preventing DDS and the state Department of Finance from implementing the funding reductions. A hearing in the case is scheduled for Dec. 28 before Superior Court Judge Ronald Robie.

Named as plaintiffs are four autistic adults living in community homes in Los Angeles, Sylmar, Castro Valley and San Jose. One of those homes is operated in Los Angeles by the Jay Nolan Center for the Autistic.

Richard L. Rosenberg, the Jay Nolan Center’s executive director, said the $2.7 million is being sliced out of an already bare-bones system.

“The impact is more dramatic than it seems because of the outrageous under-funding that we are starting with,” Rosenberg said. “We are currently running a $300,000 annual deficit without any cutbacks. We humanly cannot ask our parents to do more bingo, do more marathons, do more fund raising.”

The Jay Nolan Center supervises 64 autistic adults in four apartments and nine houses. It also runs vocational day programs, after-school programs and other support services for about 600 families with autistic children. The new rates may force Jay Nolan to shut down the houses and apartments, Rosenberg said.

In other homes, the cuts would force a reduction in the quality of services, according to Ellen Goldblatt, manager of Protection & Advocacy Inc., a public interest law organization in Oakland that serves as a watchdog for the rights of California’s mentally disabled residents.

“The small facilities will cut back on the quality of food, they will not take them to restaurants or movies, they will cut back on the kinds of (community) integration activities the Lanterman Act mandates,” Goldblatt said.

Macomber said he does not believe the impact would be severe. A handful of facilities--he acknowledged that the Jay Nolan Center is one--would see revenues significantly reduced, but he contended that those may have been overpaid in the past.

Those facing reductions may end up retaining their current level of funding if the Legislature acts quickly on a bill the Department of Developmental Services is pushing.

The bill, introduced Monday by state Sen. John Seymour (R-Anaheim), would capture $34 million in new federal money for community-based residential treatment facilities, according to Macomber. Included in the legislation is a provision to preserve the current funding level paid to the 700 facilities facing reductions.