SHORELINE — Two months’ rent is paid at a house in the 40000 block of NW 203rd Street., but no one has moved in.
It could be called a waste of money, but the empty house is actually due to a lack of funding.
Chris Seidler, of Arlington, was planning to move her son, Richard, a Fircrest School resident, to the home at the beginning of July. Seidler’s son, who suffers from cerebral palsy and epilepsy, has lived at the Fircrest School since July 1993, and in the past two years she has strived to move him into community placement.
A house was found, people to care for him were secured, and now she says the state Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) is having a hard time finding roommates and getting funding approved.
At the end of July, Seidler was contacted by DSHS staff, who told her that funding was not approved. However, they agreed to pay rent for both July and August.
“He was supposed to move into his new home July 1, and meanwhile, a landlord is waiting, and remodeling the home to be handicapped accessible has been postponed,” Seidler said.
Marybeth Poch, regional administrator for the division of developmental disabilities at DSHS, said she is unsure if Seidler was told that funding was approved, but said there are limited resources available for such moves. An average of $250 per day is allotted to community care for residents leaving the Fircrest nursing facility, she said, and additional funding is being sought.
“We are continuing to try to figure out a home that can support him,” Poch said. “We just don’t have the rate approved yet.”
When families opt for community placement, Poch said DSHS staff support their request, the impetus being that language in the budget directs such downsizing.
To assist her in her struggle to move her son into community placement, Seidler enlisted help from the director of legal advocacy at Washington Protection &Advocacy, Deborah Dorfman.
Dorfman wrote a letter that was sent to DSHS officials July 29, stating that Seidler previously received a letter denying community placement, which was entirely unexpected. The basis was that the cost to move Seidler’s son into community placement was too high.
The letter requested that DSHS officials make funding for his placement through SL Start, the agency contracted to provide the care, and if no reply was received, legal action would be taken.
DSHS’s response to the letter, Poch said, was to ask for additional time to try to find funding.
Seidler said DSHS staff told her SL Start was requesting $444 per day for total care, while the state is willing to pay $250 per day for residents in community settings.
“The only place I could find for 250 dollars a day would be a nursing home; that would be no different than Fircrest,” Seidler said. “It would not be community placement.”
Poch said nursing homes are considered a type of community placement. However, she said there is still hope that funding will be obtained, as there was specific funding in the budget to help support people’s choices.
Debi Arrants, community resource manager for SL Start, said there has also been difficulty securing roommates for Seidler’s son. Two roommates were selected, but due to health problems, they were no longer able to move into community placement. Arrants said it is not cost effective to move Seidler’s son into the home without roommates.
“The holdup is finding compatible roommates who also have medical needs,” Arrants said. “It takes a lot of work to find a roommate match who also wants to move from an institution to a community setting.”
People who typically move to community settings do not require a nursing presence every day, she said, which requires some negotiating between SL Start and DSHS regarding additional funds.
Beginning in March, a total of nine Fircrest residents moved to community placement and from that number, two reside at nursing facilities.
Another 38 residents moved to other residential habitation centers (RHCs).
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