TOPEKA — A cluster of civil rights and disability advocacy organizations reached agreement Tuesday with the state of Kansas to improve opportunities for people with mental illness to avoid institutionalization in special nursing homes unique to Kansas and to improve services so more could live in integrated community-based housing.
Outcome of more than a year of legal wrangling was designed to address problems at the state’s 10 Nursing Facilities for Mental Health and to transition the state away from unnecessary segregation of people with mental health disabilities at NFMHs in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. More than 600 people, many of whom are over age 50, reside in these facilities.
The Disability Rights Center of Kansas issued an investigative report in 2019 exposing inadequacies of the NFMH system and joined with Topeka Independent Living Resource Center to engage in legal action to drive reform. Negotiations with the Kansas Department of Aging and Disability Services and the Kansas Department of Health and Environment were aimed at diminishing institutionalization of people with mental health disabilities at these specialized nursing homes.
“This agreement recognizes the civil rights of all NFMH residents to live in the most integrated setting appropriate to their needs,” said Lane Williams, who is the Disability Rights Center’s legal director. “Expanding community supports and services will begin to offer real choices to residents seeking to avoid institutionalization.”
The settlement identified three goals for the next five years. One objective would be to reduce by 10% annually the number of referrals for admission to NFMHs. The deal also would increase by 20% each year the number of NFMH residents discharged to community services and would seek to reduce the average length of stay at a NFMHs.
Over an eight-year period, state agencies agreed to develop and expand services to NFMH residents and provide more community residential options for individuals living in, or at risk of being admitted to, an NFMH. The changes would include creation of several hundred supported housing units, employment programs, peer support services as well as mobile crisis and community treatment teams.
Laura Howard, secretary of the state Department of Aging and Disability Services, said the settlement followed the Disability Rights Center’s report showing decline in state funding of community mental health services from 2007 to 2018 and the impact on Kansas’ 10 state-funded nursing homes for the mentally disabled.
Howard said KDADS, Gov. Laura Kelly and the Kansas Legislature had worked for the past three years to upgrade behavioral health services in Kansas.
“This agreement continues us down the path of strengthening the continuum of care for individuals needing mental health services with a focus on community-based options,” Howard said.
Topeka Independent Living Resource Center was represented in negotiations by attorneys from AARP Foundation, the charitable arm of the AARP that engages in legal advocacy on behalf of vulnerable older adults; the Disability Rights Center; the Center for Public Representation, a public interest law firm; and the law firm of Shook, Hardy & Bacon.
“Everyone should be able to choose how they live as they age and not be forced into institutionalized settings,” said William Alvarado Rivera, an attorney with the AARP Foundation. “This agreement is a critical first step toward reforming how we serve older adults with mental illness in the community.”
Mark Murphy, a lawyer with the Center for Public Representation, said NFMH residents as well as Kansans with mental illness desperately need the community services that should be developed under the agreement. Zachary Parker, of Shook, Hardy & Bacon, said the agreement offered a framework with data-dependent benchmarks for improving treatment of the mentally ill.
In June 2020, the Disability Rights Center and Topeka Independent Living Resource Center submitted a letter to the state alleging discrimination of persons with mental illness in violation of the ADA and other federal law regarding housing and Medicaid screenings. That letter was forwarded to the state on behalf of “hundreds of individuals with mental illness who are needlessly institutionalized” in Kansas’ NFMHs.
