Letter

The following letter has been written to the Governor's office and a few other offices in the state of Washington in the hope that it will trigger an independent investigation into the policies and practices of Aacres WA. I believe that if enough of us can raise our concerns with the authorities, the company will eventually have to put an end to its unjust treatment of both clients and staff. It is not all about the bottom line, you know? We are dealing with human lives! Please make your voice heard!

Dear Madam Governor:

A while back, I wrote you a letter in an attempt to reveal the type of wrong policies and ineffective practices with which my company – Aacres WA – treats the developmentally challenged clients, who have been placed in its care by the Division of Developmental Disabilities of the Department of Social and Health Services. Sadly, my letter was referred to the very division whose poor oversight has resulted in the issues and concerns that I had raised in my letter. Some time later, I received a response from the Division of Developmental Disabilities to the effect that my concerns were not legitimate nor founded in reality. They stated in their letter that they had inspected the clients’ homes and interviewed staff and clients and were convinced that the clients were living lifestyles which were conducive to gradual integration into the community and approximation of normalcy.

Unfortunately, none of my concerns were properly addressed in the response, and the rosy picture which was portrayed was consistent with the attempts of Aacres WA to create an image of illusory improvement in the lives of our clients justifying the millions of taxpayers’ money which they receive from the state annually.

Below, I will attempt to reiterate my concerns and the issues which affect the lives of our clients negatively in the hope that a more independent investigation is launched this time.

All though 95% of our clients are able-bodied individuals, staff members are forced to carry out their daily house chores for them. While staff members get paid to do these chores, clients are gradually conditioned to depend on others for almost every little household chore. Staff members make their beds, clean their rooms, do their laundry, clean their bathrooms, wash their dishes, cook their meals, mow their lawns, and shovel their snow. In this way, the company is receiving these clients with a certain level of shortcomings and, in effect, increasing their disabilities over time and as they stay with the company, thus condemning them to a lifetime of dependence and disabilities.
Normal people are expected to live with the consequences of their actions. If you lose your money gambling at the casino, you will probably not have enough money for food, rent, transportation, and other expenses. Our clients, however, are conditioned to believe that there are no natural consequences. They spend their money at the Dollar store, and if they are out of money for their smoking habit as a result, all they have to do – they are conditioned to do – is throw an anger tantrum and blow up. Aacres WA is then soon to accommodate them with money to buy their cigarettes. A person, who refuses to wash his or her dishes, will be left with no clean utensils to eat from or cook in; a person, who declines to do laundry, will have no clean clothes to wear; a person, who does not shower or observe personal hygiene, will be shunned by others in the community; a person, who calls others names and disrespects them, will find himself or herself alone and lonely. Well, not if that person is a client placed in the care of Aacres Washington! By removing all natural consequences from the lives of the clients, Aacres WA is incrementally turning them into more disabled individuals as they continue to stay in Aacres’ program. Is this not tantamount to condemning the clients to a lifetime of dependence and more debilitating disabilities? How is this policy conducive to integration into the community and approximation of normalcy?
In the absence of true power and authority, such as the ability to make life-enhancing decisions on one’s finances, place of residence, relationships, course of education, or choice of jobs, clients are regularly allowed to seek empowerment in violating social mores and rules. They are systematically allowed – even encouraged – to practice their control and seek empowerment in disrespecting staff members, abusing them verbally and, at times, even physically, with impunity. They are often found jaywalking and trespassing (I posses pictures to prove this) disregarding the staffs’ pleas to cross the street where it is legally allowed. There have been cases when clients have flipped off police officers in an authority defying gesture. The company regularly allows client to have a staff member accompany them to an espresso stand across the town in below zero temperatures despite media recommendations cautioning the public against leaving their homes. Yes, they can! Is this akin to normalcy? Is this conducive to identity achievement or enhancement?
Some of the clients – fewer than 5% - are engaged in what the response, which was provided to my letter by the Division of Developmental Disabilities, qualifies as jobs. SL-Start and Goodwill Industries are among the few places at which these clients are engaged in their pseudo-jobs. Not only do these companies enjoys tax breaks by offering employment to our clients, they are also paying their wages out of the taxpayers’ money allocated to them by the state as not-for-profit organizations. These are, in no way, productive jobs, which can help to integrate the clients into the community. Clients are reminded that if they leave the program, they will lose their employment. Conversely, these so-called jobs are another means of perpetuating disability and dependence by giving the client the illusion of achievement.

Maybe the Division of Developmental Disabilities of the Department of Social and Health Services can provide me – the public – with the number of clients that Aacres WA has been able to fully integrate into the community over its long history of receiving public funding for this purpose. Yes, how many clients have graduated from this program so far? Who is benefiting from perpetuating these persons’ disabilities and dependence? Is maintenance the sole goal of this mission?

There are other issues regarding how clients are forced to rent from a crony of Aacres WA, and how this person is paying off the mortgage loans on his properties by an agreement with the company which compels the clients to lease exclusively from him rather than enter into the competitive rental market. I fail to understand why this has not raised a red flag with the Division of Developmental Disabilities to this date.

I believe the public deserves to know how and to what end their money is being funneled into a company like Aacres WA, who is trusted with the sacred task of providing care and attention to its most vulnerable members. I also think that the policies of the company are nothing short of abuse and neglect of the clients placed in their care. Rather than brushing away concerns regarding the way these clients are being treated by Aacres WA, the people in charge of the Division of Developmental Disabilities should rethink and revise their relationship with the company with the well being of the clients in their mind and cautioning on the clients’ side.

Best regards,