Part one of a three-part series on the Southeastern Virginia Training Center rebuild.

As institutions for the developmentally disabled close around the country, Virginia is spending $23 million on a controversial rebuild of one of five such centers in the state.

Construction on a new facility for the Southeastern Virginia Training Center in Chesapeake is due to begin in July. Half of the center’s current residents will be moved into the new 75-bed center, while the rest will be integrated into new community homes slated for the Tidewater area.

Supporters of the rebuild say the residents with more severe disabilities have needs that can only be provided in an institutional setting. But opponents point to a study commissioned by the state last year showing that community homes in Virginia are already housing people with disabilities equal to and more severe than those of current SEVTC residents.

Researchers at the Human Services Research Institute, a national nonprofit with offices in Oregon and Massachusetts, compared the care needs and medical and behavior problems of Southeastern residents to 521 people with disabilities living in community homes around the state. They found that while the needs of SEVTC residents were on average greater than their non-institution counterparts, the developmentally disabled with the most severe challenges were not living in institutions but in the community.

Whether or not SEVTC should be rebuilt, the study found that Virginia is able to care for those with developmental disabilities outside the institution, said Jon Fortune, senior policy analyst for the HSRI.

“Person on person, there are individuals being served in the community that have the same challenges as any one of the people at the facility,” Fortune said. “But it’s also true that on average the people there have support needs that exceed the needs of those in the community.”

It’s a conclusion often cited by members of the Virginia Alliance for Community (the Arc)—the advocacy organization that’s been leading the fight against rebuilding SEVTC.

The Arc opposes institutions like SEVTC because they say it segregates the developmentally disabled from the community. But they’re also appealing to the steep costs accompanying the rebuild, which come out to $306,000 per resident when averaged among the 75 who will live in the SEVTC.

In a January letter sent by the Arc to Gov. Bob McDonnell asking him to halt the rebuild, the group wrote, “Further, it locks Virginia into an outdated model of care that costs too much to build and too much to operate.”

The Arc’s allegation that rebuilding SEVTC is “outdated” seems to be supported by national trends. The population of large state institutions has declined by 31.9 percent since 1998 and by 72.8 percent since 1980, according to a study done last year by the University of Minnesota’s Institute on Community Integration.

And over the last 20 years, states have steadily closed institutions until now there are nine states that don’t have any, according to the study. Given the findings of the state-commissioned study, rebuilding the SEVTC is “completely unjustified,” said Arc Executive Director Jamie Liban.

“Virginia is about to embark on a policy that no other state has undertaken in rebuilding this facility,” Liban said. “Virginia is the only state building a brand new institution.”

Opinions are strong on both sides of the issue. After the Arc filed a motion in November to halt the rebuild in a federal district court in Richmond, a committee of parents of SEVTC residents asked that Arc be removed from membership on the center’s advisory committee, according to meeting minutes.

And while the Arc lists on its Web site names of about 65 organizations that also oppose the rebuild—including Easter Seals and the National Association of Councils on Developmental Disabilities—there are other advocates for the disabled that say SEVTC is the only way to provide the constant attention needed by the most severely disabled.

Jane Anthony, Virginia state coordinator for Voices of the Retarded, is also mother to a 35-year-old who has lived in the Northern Virginia Training Center since childhood. Her son has a neuro-genetic disorder called Angelman syndrome, which keeps him at the functioning level of a six-month-old.

“My son wouldn’t make it in a group home,” Anthony said. “You don’t close the intensive care unit of the hospital because you can have drive-through services. You can’t have drive-through brain surgery.”

While she says she supports community living for those who are able, she believes the Arc has been “mean-spirited” in pushing for closing down all of Virginia’s institutions. Their position is about reducing choice, she says, while VOR believes residents should have options available to them.

“It’s a national agenda from the national Arc,” Anthony said. “They believe everyone belongs in the community…people on the other side get very vociferous about their opinion. Our side is an inclusive side.”