Some 680 people with intellectual disabilities may lose in-home assistance services as part of state budget cuts that took affect July 1st. This week 39 families sued the state’s Department of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities.
The lawsuit suggests the state capped in-home care to 215 hours a month and 12 hours a day without considering the total costs. Lenny Croce is an attorney with the Legal Aid Society and says cuts will force some people into an institution.
“Some of these individuals, regardless of where they’re at, have to have the services they’re currently getting in order to stay safe. For example, some of them need two assistants at all times.”
Two assistants care for Dusty Hollis of Clarksville 24 hours a day. He suffers from mental retardation and as many as 300 seizures a month. His mother Nancy has joined the lawsuit against the state, primarily to keep her 25-year-old son at home. She calls putting him in a state-run facility her “worst nightmare.”
Cathy Hughes of Campbell County says the current caps will mean her son may have to go live somewhere else. Chris Hughes suffers from cerebral palsy and can’t speak. Cathy Hughes says he wouldn’t survive in an institution.
“When I take Chris to the emergency room, they just ask, ‘what do you want us to do?’ Because nobody can communicate with him like we can.”
The plaintiffs are asking for an immediate injunction that would allow them in-home care while the legal matter works its way through court.
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