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Rethink Social Services Rules

Officials of state and federal social service agencies mean well. So do the courts that so often tell them how to handle various situations.

One sometimes wonders whether anyone thinks to apply simple common sense to rules on matters such as helping people with disabilities.

Pursuant to federal law, the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources wants to alter a Wellsburg complex that is home to 25 developmentally challenged people, Brooke County commissioners were told this week.

Because care for so many people with physical, intellectual and emotional challenges is funded at least in part by state and federal governments, they have power over matters such as how such complexes are run.

About 25 people live in the Shiloh complex now, commissioners were told. Eventually, half the apartments will not be available to developmentally challenged people, if the DHHR has its way.

Officials of the agency note that federal law is intended to keep people with disabilities from being segegrated from the rest of society. Apparently, an apartment complex solely for developmentally challenged men and women violates that rule.

Initially, DHHR officials reportedly had planned to insist half the Shiloh apartments be made available to non-challenged people as soon as possible. That might have meant telling some of the complex’s residents they would have to move.

Cooler heads prevailed, however. At least the DHHR now plans to make the transition gradual, as apartments open up because challenged people in them move.

The idea is to spread people such as those living at Shiloh around the community, ensuring some live in smaller buildings.

Don’t blame DHHR officials for this one. Again, they are merely doing what Washington mandates.

But has anyone in the chain of bureaucratic command or the courts stopped to ponder the practical effect of such orders?

If enforced, it will mean fewer opportunities for the developmentally challenged to live in the Wellsburg area. They and their families may have to accept other facilities — possibly less appealing to them — simply because government says it knows what is good for them better than they do.

How does that serve their best interests?

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