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People First of Oregon Salem Chapter
Fairview: The Closing Chapter
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Fairview prepares for end with pride, sadness
The final days of an Oregon institution reflect nearly a century of care for people with developmental disabilitiesSALEM -- Fairview Training Center once was a world unto itself, a place where Oregonians with developmental disabilities came as young children and possibly stayed their entire lives.
They lived in cottages, attended school and held jobs -- all on a treed campus on the outskirts of Southeast Salem. They swam in a campus pool, had their hair cut in the campus barbershop and attended church in the campus chapel.
Now, 91 years after it opened as the State Institution for the Feebleminded, Fairview is winding down, bathed in a constant twilight.
The last resident could move into a community group home as early as March. That will close the chapter on nearly a century of evolving thought about how people with physical and mental disabilities should be treated.
In the not-too-distant future, the state probably will sell the property. Fairview will likely re-emerge as a suburban neighborhood with view lots where medical staff once lived.
For now, however, the last 100 Fairview residents and the 700 or so employees live and work in a place that already feels like a ghost town despite efforts to keep the place and the people up.
"It's like the death of a town, really," said 29-year employee Dave Fischer, who is in charge of central operations and security.
Two-thirds of the buildings on the 275-acre campus are closed. About a half-million square feet of cottages and classrooms sit empty.
A full-time moving crew of three gathers up surplus property and moves it to other state offices for eventual sale. The crew moves residents from one cottage to another as living quarters empty.
Officials try not to move any Fairview residents more than twice before the final move to a community group home.
Gary Avery, 45, has lived at Fairview at least 18 years.
Today, he and 10 other residents are clustered at one end of Benson Cottage, a unit for those requiring intense care.
Avery watched some of his friends move out recently and planned to visit them soon in their Portland-area group home.
Although Avery doesn't talk, employees who know him well, who cut up his food and help him brush his teeth, read his body language.
"I think he misses the other guys that just left," caregiver Marsha Sprague said.
By the time the wheelchair-accessible van moves Avery, he already will have visited his new home and neighborhood.
Many of Fairview's employees aged alongside the residents who now move out.
For example, Fischer was just 20 when he got his first real job at Fairview making $378 a month working the night shift at Kay Cottage.
"Basically, we mopped and waxed," he said. "We did the mending."
He lived for a while in a staff apartment on campus and met his wife at Fairview.
Today, residents live in the apartments in preparation for their move to the community.
"It's been my life," said Fischer, who now is searching for work.
Two years ago, more than 300 adults lived at Fairview. Ten years ago, there were about 1,000. And at its peak in the late 1960s, more than 3,000 residents called Fairview home.
The move away from institutionalizing Oregonians with disabilities started in the late 1970s. It accelerated in the mid-1980s, when federal officials sued Oregon and threatened to cut off millions of dollars in annual support if Fairview didn't make improvements in health care and safety. It did, but at a price.
At one point in the mid 1990s, when about 350 people lived here, Fairview consumed about 40 percent of the state's budget for developmental disabilities while serving 3 percent of the population eligible for services.
For at least a decade now, Fairview has been a backup to community programs, primarily taking in a few adults with specialized medical needs. The 1997 Legislature made the final decision to close Fairview.
Once it does close, about $60 million a year will be available to funnel into community programs and to boost the wages of those who work with disabled clients.
For now, Superintendent Jon Cooper says that tracking staff turnover and resident moves at Fairview is something like "trying to measure a cloud."
A former support services and fiscal services manager at Fairview, he became superintendent 2½ years ago with the goal of closing Fairview properly.
That means the grass is mowed and empty buildings are not boarded up. He wants an environment where "people feel proud."
Employees are given time off to search for new jobs but are limited to two hours paid leave per interview for other state positions. Fairview employees receive six-month layoff notices, but some leave earlier.
Some go to work in group homes, a few with the same clients they worked with at Fairview. Others signed on with the Oregon Youth Authority or Oregon State Hospital. Some retire. If the job is with another state agency, Cooper tries to negotiate a start date that works for Fairview.
An employee transition team teaches longtime workers to fill out applications and to work on computers. But in addition to the serious business of mastering computer basics or rehearsing a job interview, employees have been offered a "laughter in the workplace" class. Depression must be attacked, Cooper said.
So far, no one's giving up, including the federal government monitors who keep tabs on the institution.
The last federal survey, conducted in March, was the best ever, Cooper said.
As the days grow shorter, job titles grow longer. Jay Quiring, in addition to coming out of retirement to serve as staff development director, recently became head of the vocational program and is responsible for quality assurance. The latter involves reviewing incident reports for health and safety concerns.
He worked at Fairview for 31 years, part of a unique community where generations of families found jobs and where some former residents still return, with spouses and children, to glimpse the place they grew up.
In all that time, there never was such a thing as a routine day, Quiring said.
"Closing is just part of that change process."
This article by Cheryl Martinis was published by the Oregonian, July 12, 1999