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OLYMPIA -- About two dozen Tri-Citians with developmental disabilities sat in an unused legislative hearing room Wednesday, laughing and munching on pizza and loaded baked potatoes.
They cheered when members of the Washington State Potato Commission told them their spuds came from Burbank, and showered longtime friend and ally Sen. Jerome Delvin, R-Richland, with hugs.
But the trip was more than a party for this group of advocates from The Arc of Tri-Cities. They also wanted to tell lawmakers what it means to have developmental disabilities and why state money for their programs is so important.
At the top of their wish list was for the Legislature to consider closing the state's institutions and allow people to live and get services in their own communities.
Delvin is the co-sponsor of a bill introduced by Sen. Karen Keiser, D-Kent, that would phase out the institutions over several years and move people housed there into community-based services.
Currently, a little fewer than 1,000 people live in the state's five institutions for the developmentally disabled, while about 20,000 people get services outside, according to a Senate committee report.
Donna Tracey, advocacy manager for The Arc of Tri-Cities, said thousands of people are on a waiting list to get services statewide and that community care can be provided more cost-effectively, meaning the money could be spread among more people.
"We are not putting money into the community because we are keeping these institutions afloat," Tracey said.
Community-based care also would offer those with developmental disabilities more freedom and more choice, Tracey said.
Opponents of Keiser's bill testified in a Senate committee Feb. 3 that people living in institutions need intense care that isn't available in the community at large.
Tami LaDoux, executive director of Tri-Cities Residential Services, an agency that helps people with disabilities to learn to live independently, said agencies like hers could provide the necessary care.
She said people with disabilities should be treated no differently than seniors in that regard.
"As our parents get older, as we get older, we try very hard to stay in our homes and our communities," LaDoux said. "People with disabilities should have the same rights. ... We can take care of all of them. We can support them."
Teresa Payne, an Arc client and advocate for people with disabilities, said people should be allowed to choose where and how they live.
Payne, who has impaired vision and slight mental retardation because of a birth defect that affected her brain development, lived in the state's Lakeland institution as a child and left when she was 17 because she was allowed to make the choice.
She said she doesn't remember much about living there because she was medicated, but she knows her life is better because she lives independently now.
"I am successful," Payne said. "I am in the process of buying my own home. I have a part-time job. I serve on the (Developmental Disabilities Council) board. I want others to have the same opportunities."
Delvin said Keiser's proposal would help the state start looking at its institutions and the people living there, and whether they might be better served by living in a community setting.
"If the community is the best setting, then we get them into the community," he said. "The money spent on institutions can be better spread out through the whole (development disabilities) community."
The bill was passed by the Senate Health & Long-Term Care Committee but never made it out of Ways & Means to a full Senate vote.
-- Michelle Dupler: 582-1543; mdupler@tricityherald.com
