 What the relative were talking about today? That's my daughter Shirley, who was severely injured at birth. And as a result of that injury, she has several palsy on the left side, and she's totally deaf besides brain damage. I have been very active at Porterville. I was president of their parents' group for a total of six years at different times. I am chairperson of the Porterville Developmental Center Advisory Board, and I'm on the regional project committee. And it was through this committee that she was placed in Oxnard. It's a beautiful home and a very nice neighborhood. They have four women and two men. And it's family. So she actually has two families. She's happy there. And the first thing I noticed was she was more dignified. It was so marked how dignified she was being there in this home and being in a real home setting instead of being in a developmental center. At a developmental center, you live in a unit with 40 other people, I mean a total of 40 people. And you just don't have the freedom that you have in the community. And I don't think you develop a community feeling. They work very hard at the developmental center. They take the clients into the community. But now she feels like she's really a part of it, where she didn't before she was a part of the developmental center and she'd go into the community. Well, now she's a part of the community. I have my own apartment now. And I lived in the state hospital for 30 years. And I'm happy where I'm living now. What do you like best about where you are now? So I can get out and do stuff. At the state hospital, people were watching me all the time. And I was very people watching me now that I have my own place. I can go to bed when I want to. I can, on the weekends, I can sleep in if I want to and stuff like that. No bosses. I'm my own boss. At first, when I first moved out, my mother was kind of nervous about where I was going to go. And then she tried to hold me back from where I was going. And then she finally gave in. I said, go ahead and go. Fine. Fine. I'm happy there. And I wouldn't change jobs for nothing. But in my spare time, I go out by myself. I come back by myself. And stuff like that, I'm very independent. And now I'm happy where I'm at. I think what I like best about him living in the community is that goals are implemented now. We're at the developmental center. They never had enough staff to be able to do the things that they needed to do. He has more freedom now. He was on a locked unit before with people with severe behaviors. So he doesn't live with people with severe behaviors now. He's able to do a lot of self-help skills and participate in the running of the household where in a developmental center, you're on a unit, you don't do any of those things. He works in the community in a workshop during the day. And he seemed to be very content and happy with his surroundings. I really feel for him and other people that they should upscale the wages comparable to other people that work at the developmental center for one thing. I think that people in the community don't make near enough money. And so therefore, you have a turnover of staff. And that's very disruptive to anybody's life. I was staying at Cameroon Reel State Hospital. And what was it like? Well, I was there for five years. So it was my home. Where I'm living now is my own house. I can eat whenever I want to. Just little things mean so much when you're out. Just to be able to sit on your couch and watch television by yourself or with your roommate. To be able to go walking down the street. To be able to see little kids walking to the bus. To get on the bus. See dogs and cats. I mean, just little things mean so much that I didn't see. Kind of like I forgot what everything looks like. I had friends there, staff members. I had three of them. They was nice to me. But there was also staff members there that was not nice. They was very abusive. But the nice ones that were nice to me, they wasn't like, I got hit in the eye. And they wasn't nice no more because they had to go back to the staff side because I guess they didn't wanna lose their friendship with the staff. So they always stuck with the staff. They would never say nothing, you know? And other people been abused and hurt. And there's a lot of people in the hospitals that I think can come out of the hospital and with support staff, learn to live on their own and do their own banking and shopping and stuff like that. Because right now, you know, I feel so lovely just to be out, you know? And I know there's a lot of them that can do it. It would help. I don't think they need hospitals anymore. What are your support staff like? The people that are in your life right now? They're very nice, you know? I had a few that I had to fire, you know? Because I can hire them and then fire them. Oh, so you're in charge of all the people then? Yeah, in my own life, yeah. With a great deal of sadness and tears, I placed Leanna in Pacific State Hospital in 1965. My only income was my earnings. Leanna was out growing me and it was very difficult to find childcare for a handicapped child who had convulsions. I'm not being critical of Latterman State Hospital. When I say shortly after her placement, she was found unconscious in the yard, black eyes, a broken collar bone and a front tooth missing. Periodically from time to time in that institution, she has been involved in some kind of types of fights in which there'd be scratches and so on. Among the last units that Leanna was placed in was Unit 29. This was a co-ed unit because she is sexually vulnerable and at the mercy of the society. I objected to her placement there. Shortly after she was placed, Ron Rosen, a social worker contacted me and he told me they had found a male patient in bed with Leanna and they were going to transfer her to Unit 30, which was all female. The staff at Unit 30 was very cooperative. They tried to protect my child. They did tell me there was another patient, a male, who found Leanna very attractive and they were concerned about her safety because she walked alone to school and this male was in a unit close to the school. Although I feared for Leanna's safety, at that time I felt that she was safer in the hospital environment with some control than she was safer in the community and yet I live in a good community. Therefore, I was reluctant to take her from the hospital setting and put her into the community. I want you to know I have completely reversed my opinion. In 1994, Leanna was placed at the Golden Star Monerting, shouldn't say Monerting, sorry. Residential care home, she is never alone. There is always at least one female attendant with her. She's happy, she's closely monitored and she receives prompt, extensive medical attention. Her sister and I now agree that she's in a safer environment than we are and we live in a community too. I sincerely hope that Leanna always has the loving care and attention that she receives at the Gold Star Residential Home. The stress and the constant worry of having a retarded child is very difficult but even the thought of returning her into an institutional setting makes me want to cry. I hope she's never placed in an institution again.