The main thrust of the Family Care Class Action Lawsuit was the process by which residents in Adult Family Home and Community-Based Residential Facilities could challenge decisions to move them elsewhere. The main plaintiffs were people with developmental disabilities but the plaintiff class included individuals with all types of disabilities. Many of the settlement provisions address procedural issues in the Family Care decisionmaking process. Other provisions call for gathering data on AFH and CBRF costs in Milwaukee County in order to determine whether residential provider rates are sufficient to attract quality providers.

One persistent issue in the AFH/CBRF universe is the requirement that CIP/COP/BIW/Family Care program funds (because the source is federal waiver money) can only be used to pay for staff and services at the person's residence. The person must pay for room and board at the AFH/CBRF with their own funds which is usually SSI. Aggregating SSI from 3 - 8 people is not enough to buy or rent a suitable single-family residence in many areas of the County. This creates a low income housing issue that is embedded in the Family Care system. This has been a problem in all of the waiver programs for a while but it appears to be even more acute in the Family Care program.

Section I - H, M & N of the settlement calls for Milwaukee County to provide data on the adequacy of the available housing for Family Care members and to supply the information to Milwaukee County municipalities. Section I - L calls for the County to invite those municipalities to discuss and resolve any low income housing issues for people with disabilities.

The settlement just went into effect and the 2007 version of these things were in limbo while waiting for the Court's approval.

Please click here to download a copy of the full settlement agreement.

Submitted by attorney Rock Pledl