NY’s $1.4 million per disabled child = death and despair

Today’s NYTimes has an excellent article about the horrors in New York’s residential care system for the developmentally disabled. Despite spending as much as $1.4 million per resident, the “system” has failed most of its residents with sub-standard care, abuse and death.

These institutions spend two and a half times as much money, per resident, as the thousands of smaller group homes that care for far more of the 135,000 developmentally disabled New Yorkers receiving services.

But the institutions are hardly a model: Those who run them have tolerated physical and psychological abuse, knowingly hired unqualified workers, ignored complaints by whistle-blowers and failed to credibly investigate cases of abuse and neglect, according to a review by The New York Times of thousands of state records and court documents, along with interviews of current and former employees.

Since 2005, seven of the institutions have failed inspections by the State Health Department, which oversees the safety and living conditions of the residents. One was shut down altogether this year.

Read the article on the NYTimes website here.

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