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BROOKLYN WEEKLY, JULY 5, 2020
Joseph Ferris in the 1980’s. Photo courtesy of the Ferris family
Care orgs on the chopping block
Groups for people wih disabilities facing massive budget cuts amid pandemic
BY BEN VERDE
Agencies that provide
specialized care for people
with developmental disabilities
are facing a round of unprecedented
Medicaid cuts,
which care providers say will
lead to hundreds of layoffs.
Care Coordination Organizations,
which help manage
things like healthcare,
housing, food, and legal assistance
for people with developmental
and intellectual
disabilities, face a 16 percent
reduction from the state’s Offi
ce of People with Developmental
Disabilities — which
advocates say will total up
to $75 million in lost funding
statewide each year.
Care providers say the
cuts, which stem from coronavirus
related budget shortfalls
and are set to go into effect
on July 1, may not have
an impact on the number of
people they serve — but they
will negatively impact the
quality of care they offer.
“The issue is the impact
on the quality of the service,”
said James Moran, CEO of
Care Design NY, which services
a little over 10,000 people
in Brooklyn and 108,000
people across New York state.
“It’s no different than thinking
about a hospital taking a
smaller kind of cut. They’re
not going to stop serving people
that walk in the door…it’s
the impact of the quality of
the service.”
And the quality of the
care is no small matter to the
families of those who receive
it, said one parent.
“Care Design doesn’t just
care for, they care about,”
said East Flatbush parent
Geri Turner Bright, whose
22-year-old son Robert has
been with the program since
its inception two years ago.
“They have a general mission,
but then it becomes individualized.”
Those enrolled in the
program — the majority of
whom live at home with family
instead of in a group home
setting — are assigned a care
manager, who normally help
to provide care to roughly 30
participants each.
For the Bright family,
that has meant having their
care manager Debra Emmanuel
Edwards help enroll
Robert in Medicaid, and help
them organize their two-family
home so that Robert could
live with some independence
in the spare apartment.
The cuts come after the
state’s arrangement with
the federal government —
in which the feds covered
90 percent of Medicaid costs
and the state covered only
10 percent — comes to an
end after two years from
the program’s inception. As
of July 1, the federal government
will require the state
to pay 50 percent of the Medicaid
bill when it comes to
care coordination organizations.
The Offi ce of People with
Developmental Disabilities
defended the cuts and
claimed they would result
in no changes to the services
families receive.
The 16 percent cut is just
the latest in a long series of
slashes to services that help
New Yorkers with developmental
and intellectual disabilities
over the past decade,
which have done the most
damage to the group home
system. The budget blows
also come as direct service
providers, like those at Care
Coordination Organizations,
fi nd themselves on the front
lines of the novel coronavirus
pandemic.
Moran says it hints at a
greater attitude within Albany
that people with disabilities
are an expensive
population to care for, putting
them fi rst in line for the
chopping block.
“More and more with the
fi scal pressures this is seen
as a high-cost population,” he
said. “Here’s a program you
started less than two years
ago and you’re already planning
to reduce funding even
though it’s still in the stage
it’s in — it’s not very thought
through.”
Robert Howard Bright III, a member of Care Design NY.
BY BEN VERDE
Joseph Ferris, who
served in the Assembly from
1975 to 1984, died June 20 at
85-years-old from COVID-19,
according to his son Joseph
Ferris Jr.
Ferris represented a
since-redrawn district that
spanned Park Slope, Windsor
Terrace, Kensington,
Sunset Park, and Borough
Park, where he garnered a
reputation as a fi erce advocate
against racist policies
like redlining — where the
borough’s non-white communities
were systematically
denied equal treatment
from the government and
private sector.
“Joe had absolute political
integrity,” said John
Carroll, a former president
of the Central Brooklyn Independent
Democrats. “His
word was good.”
Ferris fi rst became interested
in local politics
while working with Against
Investment Discrimination
— a group that fought
redlining policies in the city
— at a time when the swath
of historic brownstones
from Fourth Avenue to Prospect
Park were deemed unworthy
of investment by
large banks.
Motivated by grassroots
energy, Ferris and a group of
civic-minded central Brooklynites
founded a political
club known then as the
Slope Independent Democrats,
which later rebranded
as the Central Brooklyn Independent
Democrats.
Ferris also played key
roles in other organizations
like the Park Slope Civic
Council and the Kensington
Community Council.
After an unsuccessful
campaign for Congress, and
two failed bids for the Assembly,
Ferris narrowly defeated
Republican incumbent
Assemblyman Vincent
Riccio for his seat in 1974.
Riccio would go on to challenge
Ferris a number of
times after his defeat, as
would the Brooklyn Democratic
Party, which helped
orchestrate primaries campaigns
against Ferris —
who won no friends among
the party’s power brokers
with his intense independent
streak.
“He was a true independent.
He was battling with
the organization constantly,
so they wanted him out,” said
Carroll, the father of Ferris’s
present-day successor Assemblyman
Robert Carroll.
“They never got him out.”
Ferris stayed active in
Brooklyn after leaving offi
ce, continuing to advocate
for causes around the neighborhood
and city — including
the implementation of
term limits on City Council
members and the preservation
of what is now known
as the Old Stone House in
Washington Park.
While in offi ce, Ferris
had been a part of efforts to
stabilize the then-decrepit
historic site during the
country’s bicentennial that
were ultimately unsuccessful
due to issues with a contractor.
Years later, out of offi
ce, he worked with a group
that formed the First Battle
Revival Alliance, an organization
that would, after
becoming an independent
non-profi t in 1991 with a licensing
agreement from the
Parks Department, eventually
become the Old Stone
House.
A funeral mass will be
held at St. Francis Xavier in
Park Slope in August. In lieu
of fl owers, donations can be
made in Ferris’s memory to
the Old Stone House online or
at P.O. Box 150613, Brooklyn,
NY 11215.
‘A TRUE INDEPENDENT’
Joseph Ferris, former Park Slope
Assemblyman, dies at 85