Prairie Dog

From the December 2023 edition of The Prairie Progressive, Iowa’s oldest progressive newsletter.  The PP is  funded entirely by reader subscription, available in hard copy for $15/yr.  Send check to PP, Box 1945, Iowa City 52244. Click here for archived issues

While many states have closed their institutions for people with severe disabilities, Iowa continues to lag in its efforts to develop community services. Too many of our citizens don’t have the opportunity to become part of the fabric of our society instead of living as segregated outcasts far from their families and communities.

In April of 2022, Iowa Department of Health and Human Services Director Kelly Garcia announced that Glenwood Resource Center on the western edge of the state would close its doors. Garcia stated, “This notion that you are admitted at age two and you live eighty years there is no longer the way we as a society would want to support a human being.” Governor Reynolds agreed, saying that “our best path forward to achieve[the standards of the US Department of Justice] is closing Glenwood and reinvesting in a community-based care continuum that offers a broad array of services.”

Advocates for people who have disabilities applauded with hopes that Iowa would finally—after more than a century of neglect—protect the constitutional rights of its most
vulnerable citizens and develop opportunities to live as independently as possible. Serving people close to home, where oversight is easier, decreases the chances of abuse, neglect, and mistreatment documented by the DOJ. It would also save or redirect a good chunk of the nearly $400,000 in state and federal tax dollars spent annually per resident.

How’s it going a year and eight months later?

A report issued this past October by a state monitoring team found Glenwood to be out of compliance with fifty of sixty-five standards of medical care. It was out of compliance with thirty of thirty-four standards for transition into community settings. The deaths of residents while at the institution have not been adequately reviewed. Eight deaths of residents who died after transitioning have not been reviewed at all. Staff training on transitioning was found to be inadequate. In the last fifteen months eighteen residents were moved to Woodward Resource Center—not a community-based provider. As is typical with the Reynolds administration, no information is available to the public on
whatever progress has been made toward the shuttering of Glenwood.

Iowa can do better. If you care about government transparency, more efficient use of tax dollars, and equal citizenship for all Iowans, contact:

• Governor Kim Reynolds,
515‑281‑5211

• Kelly Garcia, Director, Dept. of
Health and Human Services,
director@dhs.state.ia.us

• Bobby Kaufmann, Chair,
Iowa House Oversight Committee,
bobby.kaufmann@legis.iowa.gov

—David Leshtz