“Thank you for standing by us . . . through all the battles. . . .You were never discouraged and you never gave up. We will not forget you . . .”
--Brooklyn Manor home for Adults Residents’ Council

ADULT HOME ADVOCACY PROJECT

In 2002-03 MFY worked closely with a New York Times reporter to bring public attention to suspicious deaths and inhumane conditions in adult homes. The resulting series in April 2002, Broken Homes, earned the Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism for author Clifford J. Levy in 2003, and fueled an avalanche of demands for state action to end the abuses and reform practices in and oversight of the homes. Levy credits MFY: “If not for MFY’s work, I never would have learned of the adult home system and the series in The New York Times, which continues to have repercussions, would never have come about.”

Using a lawyer/organizer model, MFY began working collaboratively with the Coalition of Institutionalized Aged & Disabled in 1992 to reach out and assist adult home residents. We met with residents of adult homes in New York City, providing training on their rights. These meetings revealed a host of individual complaints. As we delved further into conditions at the homes, we uncovered first-hand evidence of the failure of many homes to provide even the basic services required by their licenses, let alone the level of services needed by people with mental disabilities.

MFY’s persistent and vigorous advocacy and litigation helped bring widespread public attention to the plight of adult home residents and the lack of viable community-based housing and supports for clients exiting the state’s psychiatric hospitals.

Among the adult home clients we have represented is a group of 17 men from the former Leben Adult Home in Queens who were subjected to unnecessary prostate surgery. In Bowen et al v. Rubin et al, we joined with other advocates to win a $7.5 million partial settlement for the victims.

We are challenging home operators who withhold residents’ SSI income as a form of behavior control in Cortigiano v. Oceanview Manor Home for Adults, and in Disability Advocates v. Pataki et al we are alleging that New York State’s practice of placing large numbers of mentally ill adults in adult homes constitutes a form of re-institutionalization that violates the Americans with Disabilities Act. Read MFY’s testimony on adult homes.

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