CVTC Fills a Great Need for Its Residents

There was a time in this nation’s history — and it wasn’t so long ago — that citizens with severe mental, emotional and developmental problems were shoved into our collective closets and attics, never to be seen or acknowledged.

Right here in Central Virginia was one of society’s “attics,” the Virginia State Epileptic Colony established in 1910. It was where, beginning in the 1920s with the infamous case of Carrie Buck, the state began a program of sterilizing women deemed “unfit” to reproduce out of the fear society would be “burdened” with more “simpletons.” It’s a horrid story that stains America’s consciousness as deeply as slavery.

Today, that institution is known as the Central Virginia Training Center, but in the intervening decades, CVTC has come light years from the days of “The Colony.”

Over the past 30 years, the population of CVTC has steadily dropped off as more and more of its residents have been successfully transitioned to community-based care centers across the state. Today, there are approximately 460 residents of CVTC; according to CVTC Director Denise Micheletti, about 350 of them are confined to wheelchairs or are otherwise immobile. CVTC operates three shifts of about 1,400 employees around the clock, 365 days a year, to care for these individuals and operate the center.

The residents of CVTC, in many cases, are so disabled they’re in need of around-the-clock medical attention. Many have lived at the center their entire lives. They’re the very picture of society’s most vulnerable citizens for whom we all have a moral duty to care.

But this is where it starts to get ugly.

The General Assembly recently designated $43 million to upgrade the facilities at CVTC to provide enhanced levels of care for the residents. The center is, after all, almost 100 years old.

But a coalition of four advocacy groups calling themselves the “Virginia Alliance for Community” has set its eyes on that $43 million pot and sees in it a way to advance their political agenda that may, or may not, be beneficial to the residents of CVTC.

The alliance — made up of The Arc of Virginia, Partnership for People with Disabilities, the Virginia Board for People with Disabilities and the Virginia Office for Protection and Advocacy — wants the entire $43 million to go toward getting all of CVTC’s residents into group homes. Period. No compromise at all.

Residential centers, in their worldview, violate the civil rights of the disabled to live in settings like the rest of us. And they in their ultimate wisdom know what’s best for the residents — not their parents (if they’re even still alive) definitely not the medical professionals.

This all-or-nothing approach is wrong-headed and politically motivated and ultimately does not serve the best interests of the residents of CVTC.

Del. Ben Cline, whose House of Delegates district includes CVTC, worked long hours to get the appropriation for CVTC. In speaking with The News & Advance last week, here’s how he summed up his support for CVTC and group homes: “Group homes are great for those who can live in them. CVTC is needed for those who can’t live in a group home, or would prefer not to. … Let the group homes flourish, let CVTC flourish and let parents have the ultimate choice to what is the best option for their child.”

We couldn’t agree more.

CVTC has the best interests of its residents at heart; the Virginia Alliance for Community just seems to want to make a political point at the expense of 460 vulnerable citizens of the commonwealth. Shame on them.