California is failing with people, who have intellectual disabilities. Many facilities, who host adults, with intellectual disabilities, are underfunded. Although it may cost as much as $500,000.00 a year to for a facility to take care of people with intellectual disabilities, Governor Jerry Brown wants to close these facilities and put them in community programs, which cost only $19,000.00 a year to run, so these people can get jobs and live among others.

The problem is people with intellectual disabilities sometimes have issues, which they need treatment for and they do not get that treatment. Then they get jobs and take their issues out on others, and create dangerous situations. Many of these people are put in positions of power and do not conceptual realize what they are doing wrong because they do not understand the rules.

I actually living in a high-rise building and some of these people that live here have intellectual disabilities. First of all, one is not going to always get along with everyone, all the time, but most adults know how to be civil and respect others. However, when people have intellectual disabilities, they do not necessarily understand what deviant behavior or risky behavior is.

For security reasons, the doors are locked in this building, to keep people out. However, someone with an intellectual disability props the door open, which backs up to an alley and leaves it unattended. Now, we are not even allowed to prop the doors open, and there are signs that say that. Anyone or anything can get in like thieves, rats, and bugs.

I posted a note and asked people not to prop the doors open. Someone was assaulted in this building over the weekend, and I am not sure that it was due to the door being left open, but nonetheless it should not be. Also, a few weeks ago, at 3am, someone was beating on the door to my apartment and twisting the handle to the door, talking about, “My TV is not work.” I did inquire who was at my door, but I did not open it. In the past I have had issues with people kicking on my door, and the police told me to just keep it shut, so this time I knew not to open it.

Sometimes I forget that someone of these people are mentally disabled and interact with them like they are just regular people, and I have been seriously assaulted several times. I got strangled, while I was driving one of them to the supermarket. She choked me twice, with both hands around my neck, and thankfully I was able to pull over.

I went to dinner with another one of these people who is mentally disabled and he ended up getting me really drunk, pushing me to the ground, our floors are concrete, and I hit my hand and fractured my spine in two places, and something else happened, but I do not want to get into that.

So back to this note about the doors being left open, this young lady, who has an intellectual disability took it down before anyone saw it. And I was upset because I have been assaulted and I am concerned about my security and there have been a lot of unusual people hanging around here. So I asked the young lady if that was her who had been leaving the door open and she admitted to doing it sometime, and then she got loud with me and got an attitude and told me she thinks I was trying to check her and had her man run up on me, as if to scare me.

This same young lady has run up on other men and cursed them out. I witnessed her putting her hands in the face of another man because she did not like something he said at a tenant meeting and she also was screaming and yelling at a senior citizen. This young lady is the President of the resident advisory board, for this particular building, and she takes this position a little too seriously. They do not have any real authority and not many people like to attend the resident meetings because there is a lot of bickering and issues are never resolved. So this young lady goes on to tell me that I need to attend these meetings and bring my concerns about the doors being left open there.

First of all, the meetings are not mandatory, and I have a life outside of this building. And even if I have free time, I do not want to spend it listening to people bicker, talk negatively about others, and make plans for improvements that may or may not happen. While I am thankful to have an apartment, as this is my first time living on my own, I would have never moved here if I knew what kind of situation I was getting into. This place has not always been that bad. I have been here for seven years, and in the past we have had presidents who actually care and do not let the title go to their heads.

The purpose of having a president of the building is to coordinate events, host fund raisers, and make sure things  are going smoothly. However, that young lady is intellectually disabled and has some unresolved issues in her life.  All I am saying if you are going to have intellectually disabled adults living on their own and in the community, some of them need to be supervised because a few of them have serious mental disabilities and they are a threat to others.

I think it is sad that Governor Jerry Brown wants to shut down facilities that house people with intellectual disabilities because it puts others at risk. They do things like leave doors in the alley open. Fry frozen chicken start grease fires and burn themselves, and use a barbecue grill, which is chained to a fence with wood slates and vegetation growing out of it. And experts recommend that if you use a barbecue grill, there needs to be ten feet of defensible space around it, to reduce the risk of a fire. Not only are these people putting their lives in danger, but the entire community as well. In the past the fire department used to come out to this building weekly.

It would be a shame if this building, which is income based rent, was shut down because many people will not find anything nearly as nice as this apartment. It really is like a hotel, and the apartments are a nice size, with a great room that has a large floor to ceiling sliding glass door, which leads to a cute terrace, and large kitchen, bed room with a floor to ceiling window, and a pretty spacious bathroom. There is also plenty of storage, and a killer view. I was sold when I saw the view and could not wait to move in.

So some people need more help than they are getting and need to be treated by a doctor. Since I have been living here, I developed anxiety issues from dealing with some of the people, and it is not fair to me or the community to have to deal with people who do not want to even help themselves. Some people even try to stay away from their apartments, as long as they can legally, so they do not have to deal with these adults with serious intellectual disabilities.

Sometimes people in the facilities, who host people with intellectual disabilities may get harmed, but the occurrences are fairly low and it is safer than having someone think they are moving into income based housing, then find out they are living among drunks and people who are psychotic and violent. In a facility, the staff is trained to deal with people who are intellectually disabled.  A lot of these senior citizens are scared of them, and others are extremely annoyed. If your friends do not really love you, they will stay shunning you, and as far as starting a relationship with people in the community, it will not last when they see what kind of people you live around.  And when you get hurt, there is really no one you can sue, as the people are poor. You just have to take the fractures, blows, and bruises until you can move to somewhere better. Had I known what I was getting into, I would not have moved here, and in the past, I did have other options.