Home or Nursing Home: Regulations and housing shortage for disabled cost Colorado

CLIFF SEIGNEUR

Cliff Seigneur leaves his room at the North Star Community long-term care facility in west Denver.


The I-News Network analyzed state and federal records, and found that thousands of disabled Coloradans could live independently – and less expensively – if tax dollars were spent on home care instead of nursing homes. We also found that one in five Colorado nursing home residents wants to do just that. For many places in Colorado, we were able to tell citizens exactly how many people in their community were affected.

NPR told them that a growing body of law and federal policy says when a person gets government funds for care, they have the civil right to receive that care at home instead of a facility. I-News told them the independent living movement for disabled Americans got its start right here in Colorado three decades ago. And we introduced them to a Coloradan who was there when the movement began.

NPR told them that there were problems nationally with federal enforcement of the law that gives disabled people the right to receive care at home. I-News told Coloradans that the state had just been named in a civil rights complaint, saying regulations here made it harder to get out of a nursing home than to get in. And we told each community exactly how much housing the state said was available for disabled citizens locally.

This is exactly the kind of broad context and deep local detail we were hoping for when we launched I-News at the start of this year. We’re looking forward to building on these collaborations in 2011.

Regulations and housing shortage for disabled cost Colorado

By and

One out of every five residents in Colorado nursing homes wants out, and thousands of them could likely live on their own, an analysis of state and federal records shows.

But a shortage of places for the disabled to live outside a nursing home and regulations that critics say make it hard to qualify for home services mean many who want out continue to receive expensive nursing care.

Colorado – which was the birthplace of the independent living movement three decades ago – now is struggling to help disabled citizens receive care at home instead of a facility.

And that’s costing the state money.

“Long term care in general is costing the state more and more each year, just as more people need long term care services and the costs of care continues to increase,” said Tim Cortez, whom the state hired in June to reform long term care with the goals of serving more people and saving money. Show more text →

Gallery: Home or Nursing Home