Opening the Door To Independent Living

For the first time in his life, Milton Askew, 59, has a room of his own.

It has been a long journey for Askew, a grocery store worker who has mental disabilities. He has moved from Forest Haven, the former Laurel institution where he whiled away hours doing nothing, to a series of restrictive foster and group homes, to this sunny Northwest apartment, where he loves playing host.

"I want to show you around. This right here is my room," Askew said proudly, as he gave guests a tour on a recent morning.

"And this is my TV. And this is my movie projector," he said, patting a DVD player.

In the past year, it has become easier for Askew and dozens of other D.C. residents with mental disabilities to begin living independently. Because of a push by Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) and the retooled D.C. Department on Disability Services, more than 80 people have moved into supervised apartments and small homes since July 1.

Officials hope, with time, to move many more. About 550 residents still live in group homes and other institutional settings, officials said, and many of them, including the profoundly disabled, are eligible for the change.

For those who already have made the leap, it is a new world -- without exit signs over the front doors, without strict meal schedules and shared rooms, without an authority figure to make the decisions. After decades of institutional life, they are learning how to be part of a community, how to be the kings and queens of their own homes.

"I vacuum every day, yes, I do," said Melvin Wilson, 58, another newcomer to apartment living who also spent many years at Forest Haven.

Although many of the residents have an attendant when they are not working, it is up to them to decorate and clean their home and gradually become self-reliant.

Fenty's plan, with its emphasis on jobs and more personal home settings, attempts to right a long, sad history of wrongs.

For years, the District's most vulnerable citizens were housed at Forest Haven, the institution that became notorious for its filthy conditions and flagrant neglect. When the city closed the facility in 1991, many of the 1,100 residents were settled into privately operated group homes. Those facilities led to a new set of troubles, however, with many documented cases in the 1990s of abuse, neglect, molestation and theft.

A decade ago, as other jurisdictions began to move toward independent living, the District remained stalled. "The reality is, in many ways, D.C. has lagged in the area of disabilities," said Judith E. Heumann, a longtime activist who became the department's new director in June.