DEL.ICIO.USDisabled wait for state services as list grows
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Jackie and Emory McNair know that three years may not seem like a long time, but when your child has a developmental disability and is waiting for help, it’s an eternity.
“You know other families need help, too, but you just feel so helpless,” said Jackie McNair. “Our whole lives are totally controlled by what happens to Kendra.”
Allen Sullivan/aesullivan@ajc.com
Jackie McNair welcomes her disabled daughter Kendra.
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And by what doesn’t happen to her.
Three years ago the Loganville couple went on a state waiting list for respite and other care. They’ve also asked for behavior intervention and support for social and independent living skills for Kendra, 13, who can’t talk and has a severe learning disability.
Kendra is one of nearly 7,000 developmentally disabled Georgians on waiting lists to get state services. Nearly half of those people, 47 percent, live in Region 3, the 10-county area that includes Gwinnett, Fulton, Cobb and DeKalb counties, said David Blanchard, coordinator of the Unlock the Waiting List Campaign, a grassroots coalition whose mission it is to reduce the number of people waiting for services.
“Part of the reason we haven’t been able to manage these lists is we’ve only funded less than half of what the Department of Human Resources called for,” said Blanchard.
In addition, he said, every year, 750 developmentally disabled students leave high school, which means the waiting list isn’t static. Those people will need additional support and employment.
While getting some services can last up to eight years, including home and community-based services, such as help getting in and out of wheelchairs or bed and finding employment, Blanchard said some individuals can’t get help until their parent or caregiver dies.
“Georgia has reached crisis proportion because we have historically not addressed this issue,” Blanchard said. “If you think of 17,000 people with developmental disabilities living with caregivers over the age of 62, we have a lot of work ahead of us.”
Stephen Hall, director of the Georgia Office of Developmental Disability, said the state has done a lot to cut the list over the past four years but there is “still a lot of work to be done.” Georgia now ranks ninth in the nation, Hall said, for providing new resources to the developmentally disabled.
Still, advocates for the disabled say their wait may have just gotten a little longer.
Under a new budget proposal presented in early January by Gov. Sonny Perdue, no new funds were added for the 6,812 developmentally disabled children and adults on waiting lists.
“Without such support families will continue to fall into crisis,” said Blanchard.
For fiscal year 2008, the plan called for funding 2,000 additional requests for waivers — services provided for as long as they are needed — but allocated funds for only 1,500. For fiscal year 2009, the plan was to fund 2,500 services but paid for only 500 waivers.
Hall said the state’s capacity to serve citizens with disabilities “is about 1,500 new folk a year tops. That’s what was funded, by the way, the two years prior.”
He said services are based on need as required by Medicaid law, not a first-come, first-serve basis.
The cost for services varies — as little as $6,800 for annual job support per person to as much as $60,800 for someone who needs a nurse and/or around the clock care, said Blanchard.
Jackie McNair says said she won’t be able to return to work full time if her daughter doesn’t get the help she needs. She also is worried Kendra may reach adulthood before she gets help. “Having no idea where she is on the list, I can’t help but wonder if she’ll be 18 when she gets what she needs,” she said.
For Mark Buchanan, of Marietta, the wait has been four years.
Buchanan said his sister, Deborah, who at 49 has the cognitive and physical function of a 15-month-old infant, needs housing.
Deborah Buchanan lives in a group home in Florida, near her mother. With his mother close to 70, Buchanan would like to move the two of them closer to him but he said there are no vacancies at local facilities that could provide the care she needs.
Deborah Buchanan can’t feed or bath herself nor is she able to walk.
Mark Buchanan said officials at the Department of Human Resource regional office have told him it could take anywhere from a year to 10 years to get a place for his sister.
“You’re basically waiting for someone to die,” he said. “It’s frustrating to me as a taxpayer to know that … state hasn’t allocated more to build additional facilities. To me it’s a crime.”
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