Judge OKs transfer of Fircrest residents

By Jonathan Martin
Seattle Times staff reporter

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Invoking the national trend toward closing state institutions, a King County judge yesterday validated the state's plan to shrink the population at Fircrest School.

Superior Court Judge Julie Spector dismissed arguments that the Legislature's plan to downsize — and likely close — the Shoreline institution for the developmentally disabled violated Article XIII of the state constitution, which calls for vulnerable people to be "fostered and supported by the state."

Spector, who represented mentally ill patients as a public defender, said in her ruling that she empathizes with the relatives of Fircrest residents. But a lawsuit filed in December by the families and the state employees union didn't meet the threshold necessary to reverse the intent of the Legislature, she said.

Since December, 21 people have been moved out of Fircrest, which now has 253 profoundly or severely retarded residents. Spector's ruling clears the way for about 40 more residents to be transferred in the next year to other state institutions, or, if their families choose, to adult family or group homes.

Yesterday's ruling also gave a significant victory to the advocates for people with disabilities, who have argued that institutionalized people can live healthy and full lives off the state grounds. Spector summarized the argument as "the freedom to pursue day-to-day activities, such as shopping, going to the movies, socializing with friends and family, marrying or owning a pet."

"(The ruling) recognized that people with developmental disabilities should be given opportunities to live in the least-restrictive environment possible," said Debbie Dorfman, an attorney for Washington Protection and Advocacy Systems, an advocacy group that supports the downsizing plan.

The Legislature, following the lead of 29 other states, authorized a plan last year to shrink Fircrest and plan for its eventual closure.

Fircrest was targeted because it is the most urban of the five state institutions. The 87-acre campus presents "an unprecedented (and unanticipated) opportunity," with enough land to become one of the three biggest residential developments in the Seattle area, according to a State Investment Board report in December.

Such assessments gall Fircrest's supporters, who say the state plan prioritizes money ahead of vulnerable people. Three-quarters of Fircrest's residents need help going to the bathroom, and nearly two-thirds can't eat without help. About 60 percent of Fircrest's residents have lived there for more than three decades, arriving at time when there were few other options.

"My child — and he is still a child — has been living at the same place since 1966, and now they want to move him entirely?" Consuelo Frodsham, 86, said of her 50-year-old son Scott.
 
The ruling is likely to be appealed to the State Supreme Court by a group that includes the state employees union and relatives and guardians of Fircrest residents. Phil Talmadge, the group's attorney and a candidate for governor, said he's confident Spector's ruling will be overturned.

Nationwide, the de-institutionalization trend begun under President Kennedy steams forward. Nine other states and the District of Columbia have closed all their institutions.

Washington's institutionalized population shrank from 4,145 in 1967 to 1,005 today, a trend driven by philosophical shifts and severely restricted admissions.

The mounting costs of institutionalized care — currently about $150,000 per resident annually — seem unfair to some of the thousands of parents with disabled children who may get only $20 per day in state aid for basic day classes. There are thousands more who get no help at all.

To help those families, it is expected that most of the potential proceeds from Fircrest's sale would build a permanent developmental-disabilities trust fund.

By the end of March, Fircrest will close two 15-person cottages that have housed residents with pica, a disorder that causes them to eat inedible substances; all but one of those residents is moving to a state institution in Buckley. Another cottage is scheduled to close in September, and another next March.

The Legislature gave the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) $6 million to remodel cottages at other institutions in anticipation that some Fircrest residents would be moved, and $2.8 million more to minimize disruption in the lives of people who are moved.

The agency eliminated residents' right to appeal moves in an emergency order issued Christmas Eve, angering parents and guardians. DSHS officials said residents could appeal if they were moved to an adult family home or group home but could not appeal a move to another institution.

"I realize this decision has a lot of emotion," said Kathy Leitch, DSHS assistant secretary for aging and disability services, "but the law talks about people choosing between (an institution) and a community setting."

Spector agreed yesterday. Much of her nine-page ruling summarized the legal arguments behind the closure of institutions, including a 1999 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that empowered disabled people to choose where they will live.

"The aim has not been to diminish services to the developmentally disabled but to increase the development of independence through an individualized approach to each person, whether placement occurs in a community-based program or in an institutional setting," Spector said.

Jonathan Martin: 206-464-2605

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