People First of Oregon        

Fairview: The Closing Chapter

Articles

Supervision key in Fairview releases

Recent news stories fostering public fear about 17 Fairview Training Center residents would more accurately have focused on the statešs intense measures to ensure public safety.

These Fairview residents are persons with mental retardation and other developmental disabilities. They exhibit sexual behaviors that most people find inappropriate. Some are at Fairview only because they voluntarily agree to be there.

When they leave Fairview, they will move to intensely supervised state-operated facilities across the state.

There, staff supervision will be double what it is at Fairview. Alarms will alert staff if a resident opens a door or unlatches a gate. Residents will not go on a field trip without constant supervision. People in the neighborhood will be told their new neighbors are developmentally disabled and whom to call if there are problems with noise, for instance.

Several dozen such persons already live in intensely supervised community facilities, some for up to eight years. In that time, staff have consistently provided supervision, resulting in no threat to neighborhood safety.

A question has been raised about why the state will not notify neighbors of the residents' sexual issues. This is not a "loophole." Three separate state and federal laws require persons with disabilities to be treated the same as non-disabled persons. Notification laws are intended to alert the public when unsupervised sex offenders move into a neighborhood. By contrast, the Fairview residents will be supervised. Thirteen of them are not offenders; those who did commit sexual crimes did so 10-15 years ago.

We have explained all of this to legislators in public hearings, and we will continue to do so.

The Legislature has approved a long-range plan for persons with developmental disabilities that will ultimately close Fairview Training Center. When the institution closes, millions will be saved. That money will be used to help some real heroes in our midst -- more than 3,500 Oregon families who care at home for a person with a developmental disability. Although it costs about $215,000 a year to care for a Fairview resident, these families receive little or no state help.

With Fairview's closure, we can begin to help these families, including the more than 275 here in Marion and Polk counties. The assistance will include such things as respite care, in-home staffing or minor home modifications such as making a bathroom accessible to a wheelchair.

A final note: News stories have implied that the state Public Records Law was required to obtain Fairview-related information from the Oregon Department of Human Resources. Untrue. We have been consistent in meeting reporters' requests for information that does not illegally violate someonešs privacy, and we will continue to do so.

And that information shows that the public's interest in public safety will continue to be served.

This column by Gary Weeks was published by the Salem Statesman Journal November 26, 1997 as a guest opinion.

Gary Weeks of Salem is director of the Oregon Department of Human Resources, one of whose divisions operates Fairview Training Center.