Ohio's Human Services Report Card in the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals

BRS Newsletter Article #7

Ohio’s Human Services Report Card in the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals

Okay, I said last month we were going to look at Ohio’s compliance and progress with the rulings of the Olmstead Act since 1999. Let’s take the way back machine to the church basements of the 1950’s where, imagine you are a well-intentioned member of a parent group starting the first formalized DD services in the state of Ohio. Fast forward to 2018 and ask yourself this question as the founding member of a DD nonprofit in the aforementioned church basement: If you had to do it all over again, would you choose county government to run DD service delivery in Ohio? Would you petition the state to create an entity similar to DODD? Would you create county adult workshops where your loved ones work under a segregated sub-minimum wage certificate with state and federal oversight? But, but, wait a second you say, that community sheltered adult workshop was meant to provide structure and a peer group for our family member with a developmental disability. Okay then, let’s open up the enrollment a bit. What about Dr. Pauls’ group of forty-two over at Broadview State Hospital? Can they attend too? They just don’t have much family involvement or any community supports because they were unfortunate enough to be institutionalized by the state. Hmmm, difficult choices. Let’s travel back to the present. It’s 2018 and a federal judge says that Ohio sub-minimum wage certificates and segregated adult DD workshops STILL represent an analogous level of discrimination to a 1964 segregated swimming pool case. In the jurisdiction of the Sixth Circuit Court there are six or seven possible state waivers available, if you have a disability, yet there are thousands of citizens on waiting lists in Ohio alone, who may never get a waiver. Tennessee is somewhat worse regarding the waiting lists.

So, if you are lucky enough to receive a waiver in Ohio, then you probably have some form of case management from a Supports Administrator or Job and Family Services case worker, right? Those individuals are charged with protecting your rights and assisting you with purchasing services in the community and navigating the system. If you don’t have a waiver, what are your chances like? Well, you can try the local thirty day revolving door county mental health board services but they likely don’t have the resources to find you adequate housing or keep you from living under a bridge. What if you are clinically depressed and decide to sit down in front of a train in Cleveland. True story. What if you get snatched by a guy in a pickup truck and driven to North Carolina to be a sex worker. Again, true story. If you’re in the Ohio mental health system and the state holds your guardianship, it doesn’t necessarily mean the state has the means to provide adequate services and oversight to keep you safe and alive. This stuff makes our local judges bananas because believe it or not, most of them actually care about the health and welfare of the citizens in their individual jurisdictions.

Back to the Olmstead Act, it doesn’t look like there has been much improvement for Ohio. Still would like a second opinion? Call Disability Rights Ohio and get the current statistics for 2017-2018. If you’re like me you will be saddened by what has become of those church basement programs when they were young and full of hope for the future. President Kennedy had a sister with a disability whom he discussed publicly and suddenly it was okay for America to talk about it. We also got the Peace Corps and folks landed on the moon by the end of the decade.

Hope springs eternal and maybe there’s still hope in the future for Ohio. On July fifth, the Washington Post reported that jobless rates for Americans with disabilities have fallen faster than the unemployment rates for the U.S. general workforce. 2.7 points in the past year, from 9.5 to 7 percent overall. For the month of June, 2018, the share of working-age people with disabilities who are currently employed has reached 29.7 percent. That is a 1.7 percent increase from last year and means that fully thirty percent of disabled Americans who wish to work are employed. So, maybe we shouldn’t give up on Ohio just yet. Let’s triage this. What would help Ohio the most? One thing that everyone agrees on statewide, is that we need a complete overhaul of the juggernaut that is Ohio Medicare. Expert estimates tell us that it will take a full two years. My friend, Sam Fleming, in Washington D.C. crunches such numbers. Anyone up for the task? Our Ohio citizens who are eligible for services, (both DD and Mental Health), would thank you.

This month was a bit of a rant. Next month I would like to share some of my experiences with the current Autism study I am involved with at Case Western Reserve University this summer. In similar fashion to our discussion, it has been the parents groups driving Autism legislation in Ohio. And also, in similar fashion to DD systems for service delivery, there is a significant disconnect between what the parents groups are lobbying for and what services are actually available. In this case, I was very very lucky, my son was diagnosed and in a KSU experimental classroom at the Trumbull Campus by the age of three.

See you next month! –Dr. Paul 330-608-6941