CHICAGO (AP) — As Illinois welcomes thousands of low-income adults with disabilities into private group homes, many cases of abuse and neglect come to light.
After the first all-inclusive accounting of mistreatment inside Illinois’ taxpayer-funded group homes and their day programs, the Chicago Tribune reports of a system where caregivers are failing to provide basic care while regulators conceal harm and death with secrecy and silence.
At least 42 deaths linked to abuse and neglect in group homes or their day programs over the last seven years have been found.
The Chicago Tribune’s investigation also shows 1,311 cases of documented harm since July 2011 — hundreds more cases of documented harm than publicly reported by Illinois’ Department of Human Services.
Human Services officials retracted five years of erroneous reports after confronted with the newspaper’s findings. You can read the full report here.