State Breaking Up a Happy Home : Laws make it difficult for couple, disabled friend to live together in peace

Life has not been easy for Tracy Grimes, 32, who suffered a brain stem hemorrhage in 1987 that left her paralyzed and partly blind. She cannot move her wheelchair, use the bathroom or dress without assistance. Grimes’ mother cannot care for her; Grimes’ son lives with her mother.

In 1991, however, Grimes’ luck changed. She was befriended by the Hannas of Chatsworth. Eventually, Grimes and Gabrielle and Frederick Hanna grew so close that the Hannas invited her to move in with them.

Suddenly, she lived with people who loved her and cared for her. She had her own room, and was able to be near children during the day. It was just about perfect.

Then the state stepped in, and screwed everything up.

The Hannas could not qualify for funds from California’s In-Home Supportive Services program because such monies are only available for disabled persons who are still living in the home they occupied at the time they became disabled. For the Hannas to care for Grimes, the state regulations said, their home would have to be licensed and remodeled to meet state regulations.

But if the Hannas took such steps and had their home licensed, they still would not be eligible for those In-Home program funds. That’s because this money only applies to home care, and not to licensed facilities. Meanwhile, because the Hanna family home did not have a community care facility license, the state ordered Grimes to leave, threatening the Hannas with $200 in fines per day as long as she remained there.

It was a classic example of a bureaucracy that was incapable of bending the rules even slightly. Grimes was shipped out to another board-and-care facility where she had no privacy, and no one well enough to talk to.

She may yet win the right to live with the Hannas, however. A Superior Court judge has granted a preliminary injunction, saying that the home did not have to be licensed for Grimes to live there. The judge also ruled that the Hannas could not be denied state funds to care for her.

Our readers put it best. One, for example, asked: “Who is the bureaucratic idiot who ordered Grimes removed from a home where she was well-cared-for, happy, and loved?”

The state isn’t protecting Grimes. It’s making her life miserable.