LUBBOCK, Texas — It took more than 40 years for Leonard Barefield to finally get to choose where he lived.
The intellectually-disabled Texas native moved to a group home in Lubbock in September after he had first lived in near slavery conditions for more than three decades in a squalid house in Iowa and worked at a turkey processing plant there for 41 cents an hour. After being freed by social workers from that situation, he was sent in 2008 to a nursing home in Midland, Texas.
His plight is not uncommon in Texas, where people with such disabilities are routinely warehoused in nursing homes, according to a lawsuit brought by Barefield and other disabled people. Advocates for the intellectually-disabled — a condition affecting reasoning and learning — say Texas is violating the Americans with Disabilities Act and other federal laws by denying services that could allow more than 4,000 people to live in the community.
The state denies it is exploiting the disabled, saying it is committed to providing them with the highest quality of services.
The 71-year-old Barefield has a developmental disability, suffers from depression and other mental health and medical conditions, and has high blood pressure, court records show. He wears a hearing aid and his speech is significantly impaired. But he can read, write and drive a truck.
Barefield lives with three other intellectually disabled men in a well-maintained and spacious home.
“It’s better here,” he said, nodding his head emphatically. Barefield leaves the home several days a week for a day center where he can play games and work on small projects.
Even though he was exploited for decades, the outcome of Barefield’s case is better than some.
The lawsuit against the state by Barefield and the other disabled patients was filed in 2010 and has crawled through the legal system. The federal Department of Justice joined the suit on the side of the disabled in 2012.
In 2013, the state and lawyers for the disabled reached an “interim settlement agreement” that in part called for Texas to expand community services and create a service team for each disabled person. In return the suit was put aside for two years.
But without explanation, the agreement was ended in 2015. Neither side will talk about why this happened because they say confidentiality rules prevent comment. The lawsuit has been reactivated.
A federal judge in San Antonio ruled in May that the case could go ahead and granted class-action status to include more than 4,000 intellectually-disabled people in nursing homes.
Barefield and the others aren’t asking for any money in compensation.
“All we’re asking the state to do is comply with the (federal) law,” said Robert Velevis, an attorney for the disabled clients.
State aging and disability department spokeswoman Cecilia Cavuto declined to comment on the case but said the state is “committed to ensuring Texas nursing home residents, including those who have intellectual and developmental disabilities, receive the highest quality services.”
She said Texas care providers do evaluations for each person entering a nursing home to determine what specialized services might be needed and whether a resident wants to transition into a community-based setting.
Lawyers for the disabled say the state excludes them from “any meaningful access” to Texas’s system of community-based services needed to be able to live in the community.
Click here to read more about Texas being accused of ignoring mentally disabled in nursing homes.
