For years mentally ill adults have been "warehoused" in overpopulated, for-profit group homes, but no longer. Today Judge Nick Garaufis called for the state to begin clearing out the facilities and allowing residents to go live in apartments of their own. The order applies to about 4,300 New Yorkers who, according to Jennifer Mathis, deputy legal director of the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, will now be able to "live their lives the way the rest of us do."
Last year Garaufis ruled that the state had violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by keeping mentally ill people in large, impersonal nursing homes, rather than in smaller units where they could interact with the community. The state argued that conditions in the homes were improving, but Garaufis said the arrangement was tantamount to segregation since adults locked in homes were given little motivation to socialize or learn to live for themselves. The Times reported that in this system residents were "barely cared for, with residents left to swelter in the summer and sometimes subjected to needless medical treatment and surgeries for Medicaid reimbursement."
From the beginning Judge Garaufis—the same who's ruled in favor of minorities in recent discrimination cases against the FDNY—has drawn a hard line with the state. Last year when it offered to create housing for 1,000 mentally ill New Yorkers, the judge said he was "incredulous that defendants sincerely believed this proposal would suffice." By the recent ruling, New York will be required to create 1,500 new units, either individual or in small group homes, in each of the next three years.
