Comments

Nice shot and great color, looks like there is a lot of Asbstos there tho

does any of this stuff still work like does the building still have electric at all?

Eerie picture. Like something out of Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Oh that place? I saw that place when i was leaving fishing around there. We thought they stocked mckeldin area, turned out to be near there.

Usually (or at least I thought so until seeing this and other photos on this site) one of the big questions a state has to answer when closing down at institution is where to store all of its records. Then every social worker/psychologist/nurse etc. has to try to keep track of where the state has Hospital X records this year (they tend to move them around as other institutions shut down, or departmental space is re-allocated). That's why I always asked for a copy of a person's entire institutional record upon discharge, and when the DD center here was being closed I requested the records of any person we served who had ever been there.

I wonder if any of the agencies serving people with developmental disabilities near where this facility is located know about all this equipment that has just been left here. If they do know, I wonder if they have asked the state about acquiring it. Sometimes all it takes is someone asking for it, or letting advocates know about it, and letting them work to get it to the people who need it.

In my state, and I would think in most other states too, the law mandating the closure of the institution contained specific procedures for the community placement of the residents. We were required to ensure that the community placements included all services at least equal to the services the people were getting in the institution. There was a court monitor and very close follow-up after each person's discharge until all services had been in place for 18 consecutive months after discharge from the institution. The state provided start-up money to the community agencies. In some cases people were moved to vacancies in existing homes, but in most cases we set up new 3-person homes for them. I think when institutions for psychiatric patients were closed or downsized, there was a lot less planning and follow-up, and people may have been just "pushed out." There was so much planning and oversight for the resident of institutions for the developmentally delayed because most of them had very intense medical and behavioral needs and very involved families (the people who were "easy" to place in the community were discharged in most cases between 1975 and 1988).

When I was involved with the closure of an institution for people with developmental disabilities, we were allowed to take the pieces of equipment used by the individuals we were moving to community group homes. So we got their wheelchairs, shower trolleys, and other pieces of positioning/mobility equipment, which helped reduce our start-up costs. Whatever was not being used by the last individuals living in the institution, or what was being used but was not wanted/needed by the community agencies, went to state surplus property and is probably still sitting in a warehouse somewhere 11 years later. The facility itself was turned into a prison, and it made me so angry to see how, on my last few visits there, all the maintenance that had been "deferred" while the disabled lived there was now being done by the Dept. of Corrections, even before the facility was closed for good.

Which is worse...taking a dump next to someone with little to no privacy or taking a bath next to someone with little to no privacy....given the choice I would have to go with the bath...at least the smell there would be CLEAN - - either prospect is pretty dismal

what is that???

i want to get in the hospital really badly, how can i?

"Organic brain syndrome is a general term referring to many acute and chronic physical disorders that cause impaired mental function." Just in case anyone's wondering.

I guess you don't believe in ghosts, eh, motts?

great gallery...but no lonely chair shot? wtf? seriously, well done. you've done it again.

hmmmm nice