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Posted by Sylvia on Sunday, January 04, 2004 (13:50:01)
People with developmental disabilities
In Contra Costa County: 4,589
In Alameda County: 7,522
In California: 193,000
In state-run institutions: 3,500
State funding in 2003-04: $2.6 billion
New people added to the system each year: 11,000
Proportion of those new people diagnosed with autism: 40 percent
A long, empty wait fatigues disabled adults struggling to enter state-promised programs A RIGHT IGNORED 04/01/2004
By Suzanne Pardington
Danielle Taylor is captive in her tight and twisted body. She spends her days at home in a wheelchair, unable to communicate more than her basic needs. A smile means yes. A head shake means no. Her chin falls to her chest when she is bored or tired.
Like many people with cerebral palsy, Danielle is bright. Her wide, blue eyes don't miss a thing, but her thoughts about what she sees remain mostly a mystery to those around her.
When she attended Northgate High School in Walnut Creek, a computerized communication device, aides and accommodating teachers enabled her to take mainstream academic classes such as English, drama and psychology.
But in the year and a half since she completed high school, Danielle, 23, has had nowhere to go to stay busy and interact with her peers. She has been on waiting lists for or turned away from most programs for the developmentally disabled in central Contra Costa County.
Many days, she has little stimulation other than television; watching her sister, 10-year-old Nicole Carvalho, dance and act; and making an occasional trip to the mall, movies, grocery store or her church.
Her head drops often, a sign that she is tuning out.
This is not the life her grandparents, who raised her from a baby, want for her, or the life she is entitled to under California law.
The 35-year-old Lanterman Act guarantees services to help people with developmental disabilities such as cerebral palsy, autism or mental retardation live independent and productive lives. But inadequate funding for those programs has created a shortage of spaces, especially for people in wheelchairs, that is expected to grow.
"The state made a huge commitment to meet the needs of people with developmental disabilities, and now it is gradually, increasingly reneging on that commitment," said Barbara Maizie, executive director of Contra Costa Arc, a nonprofit group serving 600 people with developmental disabilities a day in Contra Costa County.
Even though Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger backed down from his proposal to suspend the Lanterman Act to help end California's budget crisis, the state already is failing to live up to its promise to Danielle and others who sit at home waiting for a spot to open in state-funded programs for the developmentally disabled.
"We are expecting waiting lists to grow regardless of what the governor does, unless the budget situation changes," said Jim Burton. He is the executive director of the Regional Center of the East Bay, a state agency that oversees services for 12,000 developmentally disabled people in Alameda and Contra Costa counties.
"I think it will become much worse."
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