In a stunning admission, the chief executive of a troubled network of group homes told a judge Friday that he didn’t know the whereabouts of six of his residents with developmental disabilities.
It also wasn’t clear that any of the six had their medications with them when they left homes run by Disability Services of Illinois, which lost its license because of safety concerns.
An incredulous Cook County Circuit Judge Kathleen Pantle responded by scolding the operator of Disability Services and sharply questioning his attorney.
“It’s going to be 5 below zero on Sunday,” Pantle said. “This is outrageous. You don’t even know … if they could be freezing to death or starving to death!”
Her courtroom was packed with caseworkers who have been working day and night to find the missing residents and move them to safer homes as temperatures plunged below zero and a snowstorm loomed. One person was found Friday afternoon, but the whereabouts of five others remained unknown.
Disability Services attorney Michael Kelly told the court Friday morning that the six residents served as their own guardians and went home with relatives, but he could not provide their names or phone numbers.
“You’re entrusted with the safety and care of these residents,” Pantle said. “How do you not know?”
She ordered Disability Services CEO Reuben Goodwin Sr. to immediately open all seven of his group homes and his administrative office so caseworkers could search them for records, medications, belongings and any clues that might help lead them to the missing residents.
She then ordered Goodwin and attorneys for the state Department of Human Services back in court Friday afternoon to report on the frantic search.
When court resumed, Assistant Attorney General Jessica Durkin said that state officials’ concerns only grew based on the records they found. Those documents showed that one resident required 24-hour supervision and another was allowed only four hours a day of unsupervised time, she told Pantle.
The former foster mother of another resident told caseworkers that he had been in a gang and she feared that gang members may be looking for him, Durkin said.
“The more information we gather, it feels like an even more dire situation,” she told the judge.
The judge encouraged the state to file missing persons reports with police, but Durkin said that couldn’t be done because the state wasn’t given the specific date when each resident was last seen.
At that point, Durkin questioned Goodwin about when each of the five residents had left and asked for the names and phone numbers of the family members they left with. Goodwin said he didn’t have any of those details and only knew that they left sometime after Nov. 28, the date Disability Services lost its license.
Goodwin testified that the five remaining residents frequently left for extended periods and were not required to sign out or tell group home workers which family members they were visiting. That, he said, would be a violation of their rights.
“When they leave, they say, ‘I’m going,'” Goodwin testified. “When they’re back, they say, ‘I’m home.'”
Residents who serve as their own guardians have the right to choose where they want to live and receive services. However, in order to continue to receive funding for services under the Medicaid waiver program that funds group homes, they must use a licensed provider.
State caseworkers are seeking to find the missing residents to check on their safety and explain that government aid can transfer seamlessly to support them in new group homes. There are openings waiting for them with different providers.
Durkin told the judge that caseworkers last saw the missing residents about two weeks ago. She said many of the phone numbers Disability Services provided didn’t work or were for old girlfriends.
As the court hearing ended, Pantle ordered Disability Services to cooperate with the relocation efforts, including the company’s residential director, who Goodwin said might know more.
In an interview after Friday’s hearing, Goodwin said residents who came and went frequently would take their medication with them. He said they had their state identification and benefits cards and could fill prescriptions independently.
Goodwin said he understood the judge’s sense of urgency, but he said he was confident that the residents are with family they would normally stay with at this time of year.
In the interview, he alleged that the state Department of Human Services was going too far in enforcing the judge’s order.
“I am not in any way upset about what the judge is doing, but do I think they are in danger?” Goodwin said. “No.”
The Chicago Tribune’s “Suffering in Secret” investigative series exposed grave problems at Goodwin’s group home business, which used to go by the name Southwest Disabilities Services & Supports. After reporters shared those details with the head of Human Services in November, state inspectors fanned out to the homes, ruled that the 45 residents faced an “imminent risk” of harm and revoked the business’s license.
But what was supposed to be an orderly transition from one group home provider to another has devolved into chaos, with worries that some residents might be on the streets without any medication.
Earlier this week, citing the possibility of “irreparable injury,” Pantle ordered Goodwin to turn over 18 adults with developmental and intellectual disabilities still believed to be in his care. But Disability Services failed to drop off many of the residents at a social services center in Tinley Park.
Caseworkers who interviewed the former Disability Services residents who were turned over Tuesday night said in affidavits that the individuals relayed chilling details of their final days at their group homes.
One said employees told her and her housemates that “people wanted to kidnap them, so if anyone came to the (group) home, they should hide and be quiet and not answer the door,” according to an affidavit of the caseworker’s manager. At one point that woman ran away, but she was found by Disability Services employees, the affidavit said.
That resident and others said they were spirited away to a hotel in Indiana during a time Human Services employees were trying to find them, the affidavit said. Another former resident said he was “tired of hiding and moving from place to place,” according to the affidavit.
The mother of one resident called caseworkers Tuesday night sobbing.
According to a caseworker’s affidavit, the mother said a Disability Services worker dropped off her son at her home with no warning, and she was too elderly and infirm to care for him. Plus, she said, they didn’t bring his medicine.
Because the mother couldn’t drive, employees from her son’s new group home provider picked him up, the affidavit said.
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