CVTC Closure a Cause of Concern for Residents

When the U.S. Department of Justice launched its investigation of Virginia’s residential training centers for the severely mentally and physically challenged, many people were worried Washington would wind up ordering major changes to the system.

Thursday, Gov. Bob McDonnell announced the commonwealth had reached an agreement with the Justice Department that will result in the closure of all but one of five facilities.

And on the hit list was Central Virginia Training Center in Madison Heights, home to 360 residents and employer of more than 1,200 workers. Closure is slated for June 2020.

Virginia will transition the residents of its five training centers to community-based, resdential settings over the course of the next eight years.

Advocates for the mentally disabled have had CVTC and Virginia’s residential care system in their crosshairs for more than two decades.

Leading the fight has been The Arc of Virginia, which issued a statement  Thursday afternoon praising the Justice Department and the McDonnell administration for the settlement:

“We salute (the Justice Department’s) leadership on making this a successful effort that will result in thousands of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities being afforded the opportunity to live ‘A Life Like Yours’ in the community,” the Arc release read. “This landmark agreement will be long remembered as a historic moment in the ID/DD civil rights movement.”

And therein lies the source of our concern for the residents of the state’s training centers, especially those of CVTC.

To some activists who’ve been campaigning against residential centers for years, this might be a civil rights issue. To us, however, it is, first and foremost, one of medical care.

Many of the residents of CVTC, for example, are profoundly disabled, beyond the worst anyone can imagine. Their families and guardians have made the decision that a residential center, where they have around-the-clock medical care and attention, is the best setting for their loved one.

Now they’re worried for the future. And that’s not right. The wholesale closing of the state’s care system deprives the disabled and their families of a valid choice, which only they should have to make.

More than $2 billion will be needed to get a system of community-based care centers up and running. Washington says it will provide $935 million; the state says it will realize savings over the next decade that will go toward these new costs.

But dollars shouldn’t be what’s driving this process. Supporters of group-home care say it is substantially cheaper than residential care centers.

That might be the case, but the paramount concern should be what is best for the individual and his family. The elimination of a care option leaves us worried for these poor souls.