FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM JANUARY 30, 2020 • THE QUEENS COURIER 55
Victoria’s Horrors from my past
DIARY
Victoria
SCHNEPSYUNIS
vschneps@gmail.com
tweet me @vschneps
It all came back to me as I
watched Geraldo Rivera’s
Fox Nation series on his
50-year career in broadcasting,
with the fi rst segment being
his life changing award-winning
coverage of the Disgrace
at Willowbrook. Th e segment
serves as a reminder that the
horrors of our past must never
be repeated.
It was in 1970 that I brought my
daughter Lara to Willowbrook,
a state-run facility on Staten
Island that housed an Infant
Rehabilitation Center. Her
brain damage at birth left her as
a helpless 3-month old, developmentally.
But here was a place,
I was told, where she would
receive physical and occupational
therapy. So, I was hopeful!
But within a year of her being
there, Governor Rockefeller
slashed the budget for the facility
whose staff was already too
small to deal with the people there
who were all profoundly disabled.
Within days of the cuts of direct
care staff employees, people were
dying from lack of care.
Th ere were too few people to
feed those who couldn’t feed
themselves; too few people to
dress the people who couldn’t
dress themselves; too few staff to
stop someone from choking on a
plastic glove left on the fl oor; too
few hands to help!
Members of Life’s WORC, the
group I founded, became marchers
and picketers. But no one listened
until a cub reporter, who
knew a doctor who worked at
Willowbrook, snuck into the
facility to reveal the horrors
behind the doors of the visiting
rooms.
Geraldo Rivera and his camera
crew’s passionate, painful coverage
revealed the shocking scenes
of naked, moaning, feces-covered
people. It shocked all of
us, and through his reporting,
shocked the nation.
Geraldo’s new show, “Dive
Deep,” where I appeared talking
about Willowbrook, was a powerful
reminder of that horrible
scandal of locking people away
because they were disabled.
His coverage enabled my husband
Murray — an attorney —
to convince the parents to fi le a
federal class action lawsuit that’s
forever changed how children
with disabilities are served now
in the community in small group
homes. I sobbed when I saw the
pictures of me with Lara in my
arms, raising my voice against
the budget cuts in 1971.
Willowbrook is now the
College of Staten Island, and
group homes have replaced the
institution.
But vigilance is now needed
more than ever. Th e battle to
provide the much-needed services
for people with disabilities
is still ongoing, and as Geraldo
said on his “Deep Dive” historic
coverage of the Willowbrook
debacle: “Each person in our
nation has the unalienable right
to life, liberty and the pursuit
of happiness,” no matter their
needs.
We must keep alert, even
today, that state budget cuts don’t
create small Willowbrooks in the
community. Funding cuts can
kill the progress we have made
making people with disabilities
live in dignity.
Take a few minutes and watch
the moving coverage of Geraldo’s
50-year journey beginning with
Willowbrook. Don’t miss the riveting
new show, streaming now
at www.foxnews.com/media/
geraldo-willowbrook-branded
my-soul-fox-nation.
At the recent taping of “Deep Dive,” on set with
Geraldo, Vanessa Dacenzo, whose mom was at
Willowbrook, and Al Primo, the executive producer
and creator of Eyewitness News.
Holding my son Josh at the
opening of the Geraldo Rivera
group home in Little Neck.
This Eric Aerts photo taken at Willowbrook
appeared in Life Magazine.
Lara needed total care and was developmentally a
three-month-old.
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