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State Unveils Plan to Buy Houses for Ex-Mental Patients.
Richard Kindleberger, Boston Globe July 9, 1988
State mental health officials are
getting into the real estate business with a $9.5 million
pilot program aimed at speeding up the creation of community
residences for discharged patients. By acquiring existing
houses rather than contracting for space through private
agencies or other public organizations, the state hopes
to reduce the time it takes to create group homes and thus
relieve pressure on crowded mental hospitals. The issuance
of a Request for Proposal asking homeowners and real estate
brokers to consider selling houses to the state was announced
at a news conference by Philip W. Johnston, secretary of
human services, and Edward M. Murphy, commissioner of mental
health. "The significance of this RFP is it's unprecedented,"
said Murphy. "Never before has the Department of Mental
Health gone directly into the real estate market."
Johnston and Murphy explained the new program from behind
a kitchen table at a model group home on Poplar Street.
Eight men and women, who were away at jobs or day programs,
live in the supervised residence, which is run by the Northeastern
Family Institute, a private social services agency based
in Danvers.
The
push to produce more group homes comes as the department
is under pressure to relieve overcrowding at its hospitals.
Danvers State Hospital, which serves Danvers and 49 other
cities and towns in Essex County and part of Middlesex County,
is the most crowded of the state's mental hospitals, with
more than twice the number of recommended patients. It has
been plagued recently by administrative resignations. The
shortage of community residences was highlighted after the
June 15 stabbing of a Lawrence woman, allegedly by her 21-year-old
son, who had been released two months before from Danvers
state. The son had been living in a rooming house in Lawrence
following his release. Murphy, while acknowledging that
bureaucratic delays and community opposition had slowed
the creation of group homes, has denied that the man had
been released prematurely because of overcrowding at the
hospital. Murphy said yesterday that there are about 55
patients at Danvers who are well enough to be released if
space were available in an appropriate community residence.
Officials said the Danvers region has 311 beds in community
residences. Another 121 are in preparation and expected
to become ready between now and next July, while the new
direct-purchase approach is expected to produce an additional
100 beds. Overall, the Dukakis administration has plans
for 3,500 new community-residence beds across the state.
Later this year the direct-purchase approach will be applied
in the southeastern Massachusetts and Boston areas, Murphy
said. Geoffrey Brahmer, director of the Alliance for the
Mentally Ill, reacted enthusiastically to the state's initiative.
"I think it's a fantastic idea and we wish them well,"
he said in a telephone interview.
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