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In her ruling Thursday, Oct. 6, Supreme Court Justice Gretchen Walsh said State Department of Health (DOH) regulations prohibiting certain adult homes from admitting those with serious mental illness discriminate against the mentally ill and violate the federal Fair Housing Act.
The ruling was the culmination of a six-year lawsuit brought by Oceanview Manor Home for Adults, a privately-owned adult care facility in Coney Island that operates an assisted living program.
Oceanview was designated by the DOH as a “transitional adult home,” or one that serves a significant number of residents who have been diagnosed with serious mental illness.
As a result of that designation, the facility was prohibited from admitting residents diagnosed with any one of hundreds of recognized mental illnesses, a fact that Oceanview’s attorney, Jeffrey Sherrin of O’Connell and Aronowitz, argued was “cruel and unjust.”
“Although the state justified its policy by asserting that ‘transitional adult homes’ are clinically inappropriate housing settings for persons with serious mental illness, this conclusion was based on gross generalizations about persons with mental illness and an assumption that it is necessarily detrimental for a person with serious mental illness to live around others with mental illness, regardless of the nature or presentation of their illnesses,” Sherrin said in a statement.
Justice Walsh agreed with that assertion, saying the state “put forth no empirical or factually based evidence” to support its claim and “provided absolutely no data to support its theory that people with a serious mental illness do not have good potential for recovery in transitional adult homes.”
Sherrin blasted former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who he argued had driven the policy, “laundering” it through DOH and the Office of Mental Health “in the guise of a clinical determination by medical experts.”
Lisa Vider, Oceanview’s operator and administrator, praised the outcome in a statement.
“Oceanview offers its residents independence and a high quality of life while also receiving the services they need,” she said.
“To have been forced by the state to deny individuals admission simply because they have mental illness has been incredibly unfair and unjust. The court’s decision reinstitutes justice into this process and recognizes that the state’s stereotype of our homes was wrong.”
Sherrin called the ruling a victory for the mentally disabled that protects their right to live where they choose.
“We exposed the shameful discriminatory tactics of the state that were never designed to help the mentally disabled, despite its unsupported claims to the contrary,” he said.
As part of the ruling, the court ordered the regulations annulled and enjoined the DOH from enforcing them going forward.
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