Thousands of Florida Residents with Disabilities ‘Languish’ While Waiting for Services, Miami Herald Reports

Almost 6,000 disabled Florida residents on a state waiting list to receive "therapy, wheelchairs, lifts [and] even specialized feeding spoons" are not likely to get such services because of state budget cuts and "administrative policy changes," the Miami Herald reports. In addition, while there are nearly 100 people with "life-threatening conditions" on a state Department of Children and Families "crisis list," the state is only able to provide services to 10 people on that list per month. Pat Wear, deputy director of the Advocacy Center for Persons with Disabilities, recently wrote to Florida Attorney General Robert Butterworth (D), saying that the center may "go to court to force improvements" in the system. "Over the past several months, the program has shifted, by design we believe, from one that sought to provide necessary supports and services to one that is often marginal at best," Wear wrote. Sam Navarro, an assistant secretary for the Department of Children and Families, admitted that the state does not have enough money to help every person on the waiting lists, adding that the agency "must make difficult choices" in dealing with a "limited budget." A spokesperson for Gov. Jeb Bush (R) said that the administration has increased funding for people with developmental disabilities by 69%, but some advocates for the disabled said the money helps "only incrementally." Max Bosman, a spokesperson for the Florida Association of Rehabilitation Facilities, said, "Before Bush, the system was heading for an apocalypse. It's more like a volcano now, and any day we will have an eruption." The Department of Children and Families eliminated a similar "decades-old" waiting list for services to the disabled under a 1998 settlement between the state and the Advocacy Center. Although this new waiting list doesn't violate the "letter" of that agreement, Wear said it "certainly violates [its] spirit" (Miller, Miami Herald, 1/22).