Related content • Push to close Muscatatuck stirs compliance, defiance

The state's decision to close Muscatatuck State Developmental Center is a product of changing times and philosophies.

Created in 1919 by the state as the Indiana Farm Colony for Feeble Minded Youth, the facility once served as a place where youths with mental disabilities were sent for custodial care.

Today, the farms are gone. There have been no new first-time clients since 2001. More than a third of the 167 remaining residents are 50 or older, while none is younger than 20. And several of the 52 buildings have been closed.

To state officials, Muscatatuck is an idea whose time has come -- and gone.

Instead of spending $54 million a year in taxpayer money to operate the massive complex, they say they want to direct that money so that more of it is spent on people than buildings. To do that, the state wants to place Muscatatuck's residents in community settings that cost less but still provide quality care.

Indiana is not alone in its shift to community-based care.

"It's a quite common development," said David Braddock, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Colorado who studies trends in programs for those with mental retardation and developmental disabilities.

In the past 25 years, Braddock said, about 125 institutions across the country have closed. The majority of those have shut their doors in the past 15 years.

The closures reflect a shift away from the tendency to segregate people "simply because they are different," he said.

Indiana began working on its plan even before Gov. Frank O'Bannon announced in 2001 that the state would close Muscatatuck.

In 1997, lawmakers passed the 317 Plan, whose goal is to provide financial support to people with disabilities so they can live in communities but still receive medical care and other needed assistance.

"It had a major impact on how we fund services and how we give individuals choices," said John Dickerson, executive director of The Arc of Indiana, an advocacy group for people with mental retardation and related disabilities.

So far, the state has made $85 million available to implement the plan.

Steve Cook, director of the Indiana Division of Disability, Aging and Rehabilitation Center, said the plan doesn't reduce the need for beds. But it does change how they are used.

If Muscatatuck closes, the state still will have the Fort Wayne Development Center, with 279 beds. In addition, it is working to develop smaller regional centers at which people who have specific needs could receive care until they are stabilized enough to return to community settings.

State officials say the benefits of the approach could be significant, both to the state's bottom line and to those in need of services.

Muscatatuck costs an average of $850 a day per resident to operate. By comparison, group home rates can run about $342 a day, Cook said.

Meanwhile, the state has more than 8,000 people with developmental disabilities and autism who are on waiting lists for support services. If Muscatatuck is closed, the savings could enable the state to help more than 200 others, said Karen Kinder, director of budget and finance for the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration.

Frank Migliano of Fishers, president of the Muscatatuck Association for Retarded Citizens, says he thinks everyone who could benefit from it should be placed in a community setting.

"It would be nice to have your child closer to home," he acknowledged.

But he says some of Muscatatuck's residents -- including his 50-year-old son, Frank -- are best served at the larger facility.

State lawmakers have agreed to give both sides more time. Muscatatuck will remain open at least until 2005. A lawsuit pending before the Indiana Court of Appeals prevents the state from pressuring residents to move.

But Cook said the state isn't giving up on its plans.

"We still believe nearly everyone at Muscatatuck can have a high quality of life in the community," he said. "I think we do it one family at a time."

Call Star reporter Rob Schneider at 1-317-444-6278.