Chesapeake training center won't be among 4 closing

Four of Virginia's five state institutions for the mentally disabled will be shuttered by 2020, and their residents moved to community settings, under a landmark court agreement filed Thursday to settle a civil rights investigation.

Only the Southeastern Virginia Training Center in Chesapeake will remain open, and it is being downsized to 75 residents from 110.

The U.S. Department of Justice has been negotiating with the state since February, when it released scathing findings that Virginia violates the civil rights of people with intellectual and development disabilities by keeping them in state facilities.

The department also said the state keeps too many disabled people on waiting lists for services in the community, which puts them at risk of institutionalization.

The 10-year settlement agreement, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Richmond, will cost $2.1 billion, most of which will be borne by the state. The federal government will provide $935 million for the transition effort. Virginia is one of five states that continue to operate a system of institutions for the disabled.

The Justice Department is responsible for enforcing the landmark 1999 Olmstead decision by the Supreme Court, which found that unnecessary institutionalization of people with disabilities is a form of discrimination.

The agreement was hailed by some advocates for the disabled as a turning point for Virginia.

"People with disabilities in Virginia have long been denied the services they deserve," Colleen Miller, executive director of the Virginia Office for Protection and Advocacy, said in a statement. "This settlement agreement, while not perfect, goes a long way to correcting that historic wrong."

Maureen Hollowell, who advocates for disabled people through her work at the Endependence Center in Norfolk, said the settlement shows the state understands its obligation to people with disabilities.

Some family members of training center residents were deeply disappointed with the agreement, contending that the lack of services and oversight in community homes will endanger their relatives.

"It's a stunning commitment to ideology over reality," said Peter Kinzler of Alexandria. His 36-year-old son, Jason Kinzler, has lived in a training center in Northern Virginia most of his life.

Jane Anthony, whose son lives at the same center, said in an email response: "The news is devastating, and there are many medically fragile and behaviorally challenged individuals who will be at risk in an unprepared community."

About 1,000 people live in the state's training centers.

A center in Petersburg will close by June 30, 2014; one in Fairfax will close by June 30, 2015; a Hillsville center will close by June 30, 2018; and the largest one, Central Virginia Training Center in Lynchburg, will close by June 30, 2020.

During the next 10 years, the agreement will create 4,107 new Medicaid waivers, which are state and federally funded services that help disabled people live in the community instead of long-term care facilities. The waivers will serve those moving out of training centers and those waiting for services in the community.

About 6,000 people with intellectual disabilities and 1,000 with development delays in the community are waiting for services.

"This is a landmark agreement and a blueprint for sustainable reform," said Thomas Perez, assistant attorney general for the civil rights division of the Department of Justice.

He said it was a triple win because it brought Virginia into compliance with federal law, upheld a "moral compact" with the state's disabled population, and will save the state money.

It costs $216,000 to serve someone in an institution, Perez said, compared with $75,000 in the community.

Bill Hazel, Virginia's secretary of health and human resources, said he would not characterize the agreement as a victory lap but as a step in the direction the state needs to go.

The agreement also includes a family support program for people who are at risk of institutionalization, mobile crisis teams, stabilization services, monitoring and discharge planning. An independent reviewer will check the state's progress every six months.

The Department of Justice began its investigation in 2008 at Central Virginia Training Center and expanded it two years later to include all of the state's institutions for the mentally disabled. The four centers that are closing employ 3,050.

Gov. Bob McDonnell allocated $30 million last year to a trust fund to move state training center residents to the community, and he has proposed $30 million more in the budget that is now being considered by the General Assembly.

Chesapeake's is the smallest of the five training centers. In December 2008, then-Gov. Timothy M. Kaine proposed shutting it down to offset a budget shortfall. Parents and family members of residents objected. The General Assembly instead allocated $23 million in 2009 to rebuild the facility, with fewer beds, along with some smaller facilities in the community.

Hazel said state officials decided to keep Southeastern open because of the state money that's recently been poured into the renovated facility and because it's the most up-to-date training center.

Elizabeth Simpson, 757-446-2635, elizabeth.simpson@pilotonline.com