The General Assembly could certainly force all owners of these facilities to add sprinklers by a specific date. However, that would likely come with a steep bill for taxpayers. It also could result in the closing of numerous facilities and the release of hundreds of state patients. Fire investigators have suggested sprinklers might not have helped in Anderson because of where the fire started.
Monday, December 04, 2006
St. Joseph editorial: Requiring sprinkler systems could cause group homes to close
An editorial in today's St. Joseph News-Press suggests caution before passing legislation in the wake of the Anderson Guest House fire that would require all group homes to install sprinkler systems:
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2 comments:
DMH is DuPont's biggest paying customer. It's time for DMH to develop decent residential care for their clients and put DuPont out of business. It is a shameless travesty that DMH continues to support the likes of convicted felon DuPont because it's the easy way to manage a bunch of mentally ill citizens. Even if another Guest House never burned to the ground it would still be wrong because Guest Houses are nothing but de-humanizing mini-institutions. It is a disgrace.
Don't spend tons of $$ to sprinkle the dumps. Invest the money elsewhere and put the bums out of business.
When the state closed the institutions, like Nevada, this is what has happened. Few places exist to support the mentally ill or disabled. The cases that were taken out of Nevada had to go somewhere and group homes got most of the "good" ones. The behaviorally challenged folks got to live in the Residential Care Facilities. Guest House isn't the only one, folks. Love and Care, Klines are all about the same level. This fire could have happened to any of them. There is too little supervised housing available and with the rent prices, people can't live on their own with just a disability check (nor would they likely take their medications properly) - so what can we do as a community to support these folks that have no where else to turn to???
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