How is Illinois Complying (or rather NOT complying) with the Olmstead decision?

The law clearly states that unnecessary segregation of people with disabilities in institutions is discrimination, yet over 16,000 people with disabilities in Illinois are currently being unnecessarily segregated. Illinois is in flagrant violation of the law. For too long, too many people with disabilities in our State have been institutionalized against their will.

It is time to stop building our State's economy around incarcerating people.
It is time to stop giving in to special interests and to organizations that directly profit from the system the way it is.
It is time to start rebalancing the institutionally-biased long-term care system in Illinois.

And it is time to finally give people with disabilities in our State the fundamental civil liberty and human right they deserve - the right and meaningful choice to live in the community. Read through the following facts, and then you decide for yourself if Illinois is complying with Olmstead:

FACT: Illinois institutionalizes its citizens with disabilities - of all types - at a rate higher than almost any other state.

Illinois ranks 49th out of the 50 states in the percentage of adults with developmental disabilities being served in community-based settings of 1-6 persons (Source: The State of the States in Developmental Disabilities 2005, Braddock et al).

FACT: Over 16 thousand people with disabilities in Illinois have clearly stated they would rather live in the community than in a nursing home, yet nothing has been done to help them do so.

In 2005, 21% of Illinois nursing home residents expressed/indicated a preference to return to the community (Source: the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Minimum Data Set).

Four times a year, nursing homes are required to survey their residents on a variety of issues, including whether they would rather live in the community. This data is transmitted to the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services (formerly known as Public Aid), which then sends it to the Federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for compilation and public use. According to this data, in 2005 approximately 16,000 nursing home residents in Illinois said they would rather live in the community than the nursing home. In Cook County alone, over 6,000 said they would rather live in the community.

The incontrovertible fact this data shows is that over 21% of people living in nursing homes in Illinois do not want to live in a nursing home; the majority of Cook County nursing home residents under age 65 do not want to live in a nursing home; and one-third of all elderly nursing home residents in Cook County do not want to live in a nursing home; and they have all expressed this very directly and publicly to the State of Illinois.

FACT: Approximately 73.37% of Illinois' long-term care dollars are allocated toward institutional care as compared to only 26.63% for community-based care (Source: MEDSTAT data taken from CMS reports).

A preliminary report by the UI Institute of Government and Public Affairs, commissioned by the House Human Services Appropriations Committee and the Senate Appropriations Committee of the Illinois General Assembly, found that "the heavy focus of spending on state institutions [in Illinois] has ramifications for the entire system. Care in state institutions is two to three times more expensive than comparable private alternatives. When such operations have funding priority, few resources remain for providing community-based services."

FACT: The State of Illinois is facing multiple lawsuits for failure to comply with the integration mandate in the Olmstead decision and in the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Press Release: Federal Court Asked to End Isolation of Illinois Residents with Mental Illnesses (April 26, 2006)

Ligas v. Miram Fact Sheet

Press Release: Federal Judge Gives Green Light to Class Action Seeking Community Services for People with Developmental Disabilities in Illinois (March 13, 2006)

'Choice' at the core of lawsuit over housing for the disabled ©2005 THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE

**FACT: Six years after the Olmstead decision, Illinois still does not have anything even remotely resembling a comprehensive, effectively working Olmstead plan**, as required by a recent decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

In response to Pennsylvania's attempt to skirt its obligation under the Omstead integration mandate by simply listing its existing policies and practices and past success, the Court held that a "viable [Olmstead] plan, at a bare minimum, must specify:

The time-frame or target date for patient discharge;
The approximate number of patients to be discharged each time period;
The eligibility for discharge; and
A general description of the collaboration required between the local authorities and the housing, transportation, care, and education agencies to effectuate integration into the community."

The Illinois Disability Services Plan Update released to the Legislature by the Governor on July 2006 hardly meets this criteria.