State Closure Plans—Comparisons

This section of the Deinstitutionalization Toolkit presents information about institutional closures. A table presenting statistical information on the current status and populations of large institutions by state is available in the Deinstitutionalization Toolkit:

Comparing the Numbers

The table in the “CLOSURES – inDETAIL” section compares statistics of state closures by providing the following information:

State: State politics has a significant impact on the closure debate and the closure process. Consider looking at states that you know are similar to your own.

Location/size of the community: Many closure debates include the impact the closure may have on the economy of a community in which an institution closes its doors. Small towns and rural areas may have different challenges than larger cites in finding alternative uses for the building and absorbing displaced workers. Many of the closure plans address this issue. You can find the population of your area at http://www.census.gov/. However, although the impact of closure on the community is part of the debate, it is not the responsibility of people with intellectual disability or developmental disability (ID/DD) to remain in an outdated and suboptimal setting in order to ensure that other people can keep their current jobs.

Year opened/closed: The age of the facility may affect the condition of the physical plant and the ongoing costs of maintenance. For information about when your institution was established, see table 1.12 in the most recent report of the Residential Services for Persons with Developmental Disabilities, available at:

Number of people housed in the Institution two years before closure: The strategy and planning involved in closing an institution that continues to house hundreds of people with ID/DD differs from the process needed to close an institution that houses only a few dozen. The number in the institution two years before closure offers a rough proxy for how many people transitioned to another setting in the closure process. For information on how many people are in your institution, see table 1.12 in the most recent report of the Residential Services for Persons with Developmental Disabilities, available at:

Current status of state: The last three columns (N state institutions, n people with ID/DD in state institutions or nonstate ICFs/DD, n in settings with six people or fewer) briefly describe the extent to which the state continues to rely on large institutions (both state and nonstate) versus smaller residential settings. In some states, a closure is seen as a financial decision to consolidate institutional systems rather than an approach to move residents to community settings. The issues involved in moving people to other institutional settings differ from the issues involved in closing, for example, the last institution in the state. For information on the other facilities in your state, see table 1.12 in the most recent report of the Residential Services for Persons with Developmental Disabilities, available at:

State Closure Plans—Up Close

Closure plans for a number of states and several institutions are provided as additional external resources in the next part of Section 7 of the Deinstitutionalization Toolkit:

The list of institutional closure plans includes the following:

• Alabama—Partlow Developmental Center
• California—Agnews Developmental Center
• Florida—Gulf Coast Center
• Illinois—Lincoln Developmental Center

The list of state institutional closure plans includes the following:

• Louisiana
• Maryland
• Massachusetts
• Michigan
• New Jersey
• Ohio
• Oregon
• Tennessee

For more information about Closures, see subsequent parts of Section 7 of the Deinstitutionalization Toolkit: