Mentally disabled workers found in squalor

[peejay 327]

Mentally disabled workers found in squalor

By TERRI LANGFORD

2009 Houston Chronicle

Feb. 11, 2009, 6:51AM

State officials on Tuesday confirmed they are working with Iowa authorities after 21 mentally disabled men from Texas, some in a “deteriorated state,” were recovered from a rancid bunkhouse run by a turkey company.

The men, all employees of Henry’s Turkey Service of Goldthwaite, Texas, and who range in age from 39 to 71, were found living inside a 106-year-old school building with trailers attached in the tiny eastern Iowa town of Atalissa, a 30-minute drive from Iowa City.

Iowa officials, acting on a complaint about the men’s treatment, arrived at the bunkhouse to find boarded exits. Space heaters took over the job of a boiler that gave out in 2002. In some areas, plywood was all that separated the men from the harsh Midwestern cold. And roaches were everywhere, according to officials who first entered the living quarters for the men, some of whom had lived there for two and three decades.

“It’s quite an eye opener,” David Werning, spokesman for the Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals, said of the case that is now prompting questions in both Texas and Iowa about how the men got there and why they were paying more than $1,000 a month for their room and board and care.

The men, all of whom have mental retardation, worked in area meat-processing plants. But they cleared, at least according to one relative, as little as $65 a month after their housing fees were deducted.

Their federal disability checks from the Social Security Administration were signed over to Henry’s Turkey Service and deposited in individual accounts under the men’s names at the Mills County State Bank in Goldthwaite, southeast of Abilene, according to Sherri Brown, whose brother Keith has lived at Henry’s since the 1970s.

“My question is: Where is the Social Security money going?” said Brown, of Fayetteville, Ark. Her brother once was housed at Mexia and Lufkin facilities for the disabled. “They’re saying they’re taking the money for room and board for working at the factory.”

The owner of the bunkhouse operation would not answer questions about the situation.

“Ma’am, you’re going to have to talk to our attorney,” Kenneth Henry, owner of Henry’s Turkey Service, said when reached by phone on Tuesday. A message left with the company’s attorney in Iowa was not immediately returned to the newspaper.

It is not the first time the bunkhouse or the Henry's Turkey Service operation has been examined by Iowa officials. State healthcare facility regulators visited the bunkhouse in 2005 and 2001, but on both occasions found the men to be functioning well enough not to be classified as “dependent adults.”

But in the past four years, the men’s conditions and mental states worsened enough to force Iowa officials to remove them.

On Saturday, state fire marshals closed the bunkhouse.

“The state fire marshal’s office did not know this building existed until we got the call,” said Courtney Greene, spokeswoman for the Iowa Department of Public Safety, which includes the state fire marshal division.

“All 21 men have mental retardation,” said Roger Munns, spokesman for the Iowa Department of Human Services, which petitioned a court this week that all 21 be classified as “dependent” adults. Arrangements were being made Tuesday to transfer the men from the motel they have been living in since Friday to a facility for the mentally disabled in Waterloo, Iowa.

Attempts were being made to keep all the men together because they consider each other family.

Questions about the men’s care have been raised for decades in Iowa. Yet, the company has been allowed to continue operating.

News reports from 30 years ago indicate the old Texas Rehabilitation Commission, which funneled federal education funds to the disabled for vocational training, began referring men with mental retardation to Henry’s in 1966.

“Some 600 people have already gone through it, and for many it’s the end of the line,” a commission counselor told the Des Moines Register newspaper in 1979. “They have already failed in halfway houses or state schools and some have been in trouble with the police for things like shoplifting or window peeping.”

The commission was folded into the Texas Department of Assistive and Rehabilitative Services in 2003 when lawmakers revamped the social service agency structure. Records at the new agency only go back a decade.

“For the past 10 years, we haven’t had any contract, agreement, relationship with either Henry’s Turkey Service or Hill Country Farms,” said Stephanie Goodman, spokeswoman for the Texas Health and Human Services Commission.

Goodman confirmed that Texas Medicaid officials were contacted by Iowa this week and were trying to assist officials there.

Sandy Breault, FBI spokeswoman in Omaha confirmed her field office is involved in the investigation into Henry’s Turkey Service’s labor and care practices.

Kerry Koonce, spokeswoman for Iowa Workforce Development, said Tuesday that subpoenas have been issued to pull records from Henry’s to determine whether the company paid unemployment taxes.

“We’ll be looking at wage payments, deductions, those kinds of things,” she said. “If they’re paying wages in Iowa they need to be paying unemployment. It appears they are paying it all to accounts held in Texas.”

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metrop...an/6257019.html

[Ban Hammer 14,269]

someone's going to jail.

[luckytxn 2,265]

Window peepers?

[Heracles 417]

What do you say to things like this...

The only solution is corporal punishment which you guys have banned.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

What do you say to things like this...

The only solution is corporal punishment which you guys have banned.

Australia tortures people?

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Exploiting the mentally handicapped? Pretty despicable.

[Waldo 0]

What do you say to things like this...

The only solution is corporal punishment which you guys have banned.

Australia tortures people?

Yes they have dingo's take peoples baybays!

This is sad, exploiting someones mental disability for profit is disgusting. Back during the coal mining days you worked at the coal mine, bought your food and supplies and the coal mine store, lived in the coal mines houses, and went to the coal mine schools. They paid you and you had an option to leave but they kept everyone so in debt and controlled it was as close to slavery legally possible.

Edited February 12, 2009 by Waldo

[JODO 2]

That makes me mad .

[Heracles 417]

What do you say to things like this...

The only solution is corporal punishment which you guys have banned.

Australia tortures people?

We have laws and regulations which minimize stuff like this. The first amendment over there takes the backseat to many other laws. Hence the way way higher living standard.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

What do you say to things like this...

The only solution is corporal punishment which you guys have banned.

Australia tortures people?

We have laws and regulations which minimize stuff like this. The first amendment over there takes the backseat to many other laws. Hence the way way higher living standard.

But does Australia have corporal punishment because you said that's the only solution?

[Jasman0717 9]

Ugh, how sick

[Heracles 417]

But does Australia have corporal punishment because you said that's the only solution?

No Australia does not permit corporal punishment or the death penalty.

Well it's about time people are held responsible for their actions. I am sick of seeing people do as they please, thanks to misinterpretation of the 1st Amendment. Yet others being exploited in such a disgusting way.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

But does Australia have corporal punishment because you said that's the only solution?

No Australia does not permit corporal punishment or the death penalty.

Well it's about time people are held responsible for their actions. I am sick of seeing people do as they please, thanks to misinterpretation of the 1st Amendment. Yet others being exploited in such a disgusting way.

So how does Australia keep such incidents from happening if they aren't using what you described as the 'only solution?'

[Heracles 417]

So how does Australia keep such incidents from happening if they aren't using what you described as the 'only solution?'

Dude it was a one-liner. I wasn't spelling out a action plan.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

So how does Australia keep such incidents from happening if they aren't using what you described as the 'only solution?'

Dude it was a one-liner. I wasn't spelling out a action plan.