Local Agency for Disabled Criticized in Home Closings : Health care: The state says the Developmental Disabilities Center overlooked serious problems in the two facilities and suffers from a poor image in regard to its clients and guardians.

A state investigation has found that the agency in charge of overseeing care for developmentally disabled people failed to notice problems in a Santa Ana home just one month before other inspectors shut it down for intolerable living conditions.

In addition, the inquiry by the Department of Developmental Services concluded that the local agency has a major public relations problem because it comes off as “aloof, insensitive . . . unresponsive and intimidating” to its clients, their guardians and relatives, and the people it hires to provide care.

The department initiated the investigation last summer to see why the nonprofit agency, the Developmental Disabilities Center (DDC) of Orange County, placed scores of clients in two board and care homes which the department was later forced to close, abruptly displacing 125 residents and causing a furor among their relatives. Conclusions of the investigation are detailed in a report dated Dec. 3. A copy was released on Thursday to The Times.

The DDC, one of 33 regional centers licensed by the state, provides diagnosis, evaluation, education, advocacy and referrals for about 7,000 county residents who suffer from mental retardation, cerebral palsy, autism, epilepsy and other disabilities.

Center officials on Thursday conceded that they have drawn low marks from service providers, parents and others in the community for failing to adequately communicate. Officials said they would respond to the state’s concerns and implement recommendations to improve operations.

But the officials also said the report supports their claims that they have provided good care to their clients. They contended that much of the criticism comes from service providers and other agencies with which the center must take a strong advocacy position on behalf of clients.

Officials said state investigators failed to examine service-provider records that might have put some of the criticism in perspective and also failed to examine the results of client surveys which gave the DDC high marks.

“I think the overall tone is that we are doing a good job,” board president Patricia Linder said. “Our clients have excellent quality of care because it is our mission to be more concerned about their health and welfare than anything else. If you look at the overall picture, we are trying to provide the best we can.”

Center officials also said they have been hampered by severe budget cutbacks imposed by the state that required laying off 14 staff members recently.

“Good communication is essential, but to be candid we have fewer people to do it with,” executive director Elaine Bamberg said.

While the state found that the DDC acted properly in whisking the clients out of the homes during the closures, it went on to criticize the agency--sometimes harshly--for failing to adequately monitor the homes and for creating an overall poor “environment” with the people it is supposed to serve.

“The regional center was perceived by the people we talked to as being arrogant, aloof and really not responsive to the various constituency groups that they serve . . . kind of an ivory tower group that didn’t listen,” Dennis Amundson, director of the Department of Developmental Services, said Thursday.

He stressed that the report, which had been previously delivered to the agency, was intended as a message that the negative image was “not acceptable” and had to be improved.

“We didn’t find any smoking guns here,” he said. “There was no misuse of funds, there was no gross misconduct . . . they were communication and attitude problems.”

In July, state agents shut down the Pearlmark Home Annex in Anaheim, where two clients had died within three months.

They also closed the 104-bed Jackson Place in Santa Ana, the county’s largest board-and-care facility, accusing its operators of accepting clients who needed a higher level of care, violating client rights and failing to provide proper medical care. Inspectors complained that the home had cracked and filthy walls, long-standing vomit in a sink and feces on the floor.

Amundson said he decided to order the investigation of the DDC after meeting with 80 “obviously very angry” relatives and client advocates in Orange County on Aug. 15, more than a month after closure of the two homes.

“The level of animosity was an eye-opener,” Amundson said. “This was very escalated discontent in Orange County.”

The investigation consisted of a sampling of client case files and interviews with 99 client relatives or guardians; private vendors hired by the DDC; agency staff members and representatives from public agencies.

It found the DDC was in a “classic Catch-22” over the closures because it knew ahead of time that the state might order the homes shut down but was prevented by law from sharing that information with clients or their parents. Thus, the center “acted appropriately” by abruptly removing the clients, although it caused confusion and angered their relatives, the report says.

But the investigation also found “merit” in charges that the center failed to do anything about the deteriorating conditions of the two homes even before the state was forced to step in.

In the case of Jackson Place, the report notes that there was “little or no improvement” in the treatment of clients even after some DDC staff members complained about “chronic hygiene and lunch problems.”

And the agency’s own monitoring report “approximately one month prior to the Jackson Place closure contrasted sharply with the (state) evaluation report used” to close the home, the report said. “The DDC report did not identify any physical plant or client health care-related deficiencies.”

The report dwelt heavily on the agency’s image problems, blaming them in part for the furor surrounding the home closures.

“Based on the interviews with state and local community agencies, the review team believes that DDC has major problems in the areas of communication and interagency cooperation,” the report says. “This situation appears to have created an environment that can be expected to elevate or inflame reactions to events, such as the reaction to the Pearlmark Home and Jackson Place closures.”

The inquiry also found that many of the center’s vendors--facilities and individuals who are paid by the DDC to care for the disabled--feared “retaliation” from the agency if they spoke out about their concerns. They were afraid the agency would stop referring clients, the report said.

Amundson said his department has already discussed the investigation with some DDC board members and “they’ve got our message.

“They’re going to do a real outreach to the community to mend fences and make improvements,” he said. “That’s what their goal is and we expect it to happen.”

Frammolino reported from Sacramento, Rivera from Costa Mesa.