A man in urine-stained pants rocks in the corner of a dim hallway.
Just like the day before, “Mike” peers out a window, grunting, as he waits for the food truck.
A third man, visibly frazzled, rushes by, mumbling about a “small emergency.”
This residence hall is the “worst” at the Rosewood Center, the state-run center for the developmentally disabled in Owings Mills, Facilities Director Robert Day says on a recent tour. Day is approaching his final days on the job. After years of reports of abuse and neglect ? from razor blades on the lawn to residents taking the wrong prescriptions to violent assaults ? the center is slated for closure in 16 months.
Rosewood?s remaining 156 residents will move to group homes in the community, a decision advocates for the developmentally disabled call long overdue.
It?s too late, they say, for someone like Mark Bittner, 30, who died after four Rosewood employees used a “safety coat” to restrain him in December 2000.
It?s too late, they say, for one resident who was airlifted to Shock Trauma Center after getting stabbed by another resident, who had shoplifted an 8-inch knife during an outing to Target with a staff member in December 2006. Store security cameras showed the resident and his caretaker in separate aisles.
And it?s too late, they say, for Arbutus Lloyds, whose 35-year-old son was sexually assaulted by a known predator living at Rosewood.
“They live in deplorable conditions,” said Rachel London, a lawyer with the Maryland Disability Law Center. “We don?t think there is any other way to describe it.”
So how did the center, where nearly 3,000 residents once enjoyed a pristine, 700-acre campus, become what some can only describe as a loony bin?
State officials say the buildings, some of which date to 1895, on the now 210-acre campus simply became too old to maintain. The staff makes obvious attempts to make each residence hall homey, with vases of artificial flowers, bowls of fruit and framed landscapes, but much of the furniture is second-hand and worn.
Recently, a sewage pipe leaked for more than a week through the ceiling of a room that was used to store sterile medical supplies, according to one report from the state?s Office of Health Care Quality, which inspects state residential facilities and group homes. The pipe previously had been repaired with duct tape.
Weeds burst from the buckled concrete of the sidewalks, and an electronic door opener critical to the center?s wheelchair-using residents doesn?t work.
“I knew there would be a lot of expense and commitment to the facility were it to remain open,” said Wendy Kronmiller, director of the Office of Health Care Quality. “These are just old buildings.”
Employees, who have been directed by three different facility managers in the past year, said the center took a turn for the worse when the state began court-ordering criminals, including murderers, to Rosewood, but didn?t provide training in how to handle violent patients.
Many staff members take residents home for holidays and buy them birthday gifts, a sign, they say, of their personal devotion to their clients.
“State employees have always been providing quality care,” said Barry Chapman, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 422, a union that represents Rosewood employees. “But the state has not given this facility the resources to function.”
London says the problems at Rosewood existed long before court-ordered patients and facility directors came and went. Most importantly, they existed long before Kronmiller?s office first deemed Rosewood patients in “immediate jeopardy” after an annual survey in September 2006.
That was right after Kronmiller took over the office, which declared immediate jeopardy again at Rosewood in August 2007 and banned new admissions.
Kronmiller declines taking credit for fresh eyes on the long-troubled center ? and also declines placing blame.
“We are very fortunate because we can sit here in judgment, but then we don?t have any solutions,” Kronmiller said. “But I don’t think it happened overnight.”
FAMILY RESISTANCE
Diane True and her brother Ralph Fink, 67, remain close even after he shot and nearly killed her in October 1992.
She visits him in Rosewood, where he was sent on court-order, once every two to three weeks but fears the day the state moves him to a group home. She worries Ralph, who is mildly retarded and suffers seizures, will wander away or turn on someone else.
“I sincerely feel the staff members at Rosewood care very much about him,” True said. “I?ve never seen mistreatment of any client there.”
True is part of a small coalition of Rosewood family members resisting closure despite the scathing reports. They fear community homes have far less oversight than government-operated facilities and point to California resident Donald Santiago as proof.
Santiago lived in a state-run center for the developmentally disabled in San Jose, Calif., for more than 40 years before he was moved to a community home against his family?s wishes in 2005. He died of pneumonia less than a year later, allegedly after his caretakers failed to take him to a doctor for more than a week after he fell ill.
Harry Yost, whose son, Larry, has called Rosewood home for more than 40 years, fears the same could happen here.
“As long as these things keep happening, how can they tell us the community is better for our children?” Yost asked.
Indeed, last year, the state received 3,000 self-reported incidents from caretakers and public complaints concerning safety and medical care in group homes, Kronmiller said.
Maryland health officials acknowledge they are struggling to keep up with mandatory annual inspections of group homes. The state?s 24 inspectors evaluated 1,500 homes last year, only 56 percent of the state’s 2,700 licensed facilities.
They also investigated fewer than half of the 375 deaths there and in the state?s four residential centers, including Rosewood.
“We haven?t been able to do it, and we?ve been honest about that,” Kronmiller said.
Gov. Martin O?Malley has funded five new surveyors in his budget for next year, which Kronmiller said will help but doesn?t come close to the 20 additional bodies she needs to do the job.
Still, closing Rosewood won?t tilt the scales in terms of quantity, Kronmiller said. The 156 residents moving out represent only a fraction of the 20,000 already in group homes throughout the state.
Rita Smoot, who manages a Rosewood residence hall, says she worries how some of her charges will fare in the community. But most, she thinks, will be fine.
“They know how to ask questions,” she said.
Michael Taylor said he is thriving outside Rosewood. Approaching 50, the Towson resident says he wasted three decades imprisoned within its walls before he moved out and got his own apartment.
Now, Taylor, who is mildly retarded, travels, works two days a week and is preparing for cooking classes.
“I have a great view, I have the library, I have the mall,” Taylor said. “I?m happy.”
A NATIONAL TREND
Day says he would be hard-pressed to find any state planning to build a new residential center for the developmentally disabled. Rosewood?s closure, he said, is part of a growing de-institutionalization movement.
From his first day as Rosewood’s director in June 2007, Day said he never considered whether Rosewood would close, but when.
“Institutional living is limited by nature,” Day said. “You lower your expectations of what people can become. Moving these people to the community is a necessary but not sufficient condition to improving their quality of life.”
Aside from Rosewood, the state has three other residential facilities for the developmentally disabled: Holly Center in Salisbury, Potomac Center in Hagerstown and the Bradenburg Center in Cumberland.
Residents of those facilities have never been in “immediate jeopardy,” and the state has no plans to close them at this time, Kronmiller said.
But more than 3,000 miles away, staff at the Agnews Developmental Center in north San Jose ? where Donald Santiago lived ? are also preparing for closure and sending the remaining 170 developmentally disabled residents into the community.
The closure of Agnews was first announced in January 2003 but was delayed several times. California officials hope to shutter the 87-acre campus by the end of the year.
They, too, have met with resistance from reluctant family members like Brian Boxall.
Boxall heads a group known as the Association for Mentally Retarded at Agnews and said the state institution potentially saved his older brother David?s life.
Severely autistic, David moved from group home to group home, and for reasons Boxall can’t explain, from two medications to nearly one dozen. When the mix of medications became life-threatening, Boxall said the family moved David to Agnews.
“Our family had always been told it was a big, evil place and it was the last place we ever wanted David to end up,” Boxall said. “But it was the happiest he had ever been, and it’s the best care he ever received.”
But for many former Rosewood residents, living on their own means finally living. Dozens lined up earlier this month to present O?Malley with yellow roses, a symbol of freedom.
Taylor likens the difference to the catchphrase of one of his favorite television personalities, renowned chef Emeril Lagasse.
“I kick it up a notch,” he said, laughing.
Rosewood timeline
» 1895: Asylum and Training School for the Feeble Minded opens on 683-acre property.
» 1912: Name changed to Rosewood State Training School.
» 1961: Name changed to Rosewood State Hospital. At its peak, the campus consisted of 43 buildings totaling nearly 730,000 square feet and had nearly 3,000 residents.
» 2002: Maryland Disability Law Center reports on Rosewood resident who died after being restrained in a “safety coat.”
» April 2006: Law center complains of residents in prolonged seclusion.
» June 2006: Maryland Office of Health Care Quality investigates sexual abuse complaint at Rosewood.
» September 2006: The agency declaresimmediate jeopardy after a routine annual survey. Imposes 30-day ban on admissions.
» January 2007: The agency declares immediate jeopardy after investigating a stabbing involving a resident who stole a knife from a department store on an outing with an employee. Imposes another 30-day ban on admissions.
» August 2007: The agency declares immediate jeopardy after a routine annual survey. Imposes 30-day ban on admissions.
» January 2008: Gov. Martin O?Malley announces closure. At the time, 26 buildings totaling 480,000 square feet were in active use with 156 residents.
