The Moose Lake program was primarily for
people with mental health issues.
There was a
relatively small population
there of people with
developmental disabilities. It may have been
comparable in size to some of the other
institutions, but I think
it really actually had a
smaller population of
people with adult mental
disabilities. And it was a very intriguing
problem because what we really had to deal
with was not the issues with people with
developmental disabilities,
but how do you construct
a system of community mental health that,
you know, throughout
that region of the state
that could take up the mission of what
the RTC was doing. Basically
at the same time,
and I think one of the main problems in
all three institutions, was that a lot
of people at that point in time equated
deinstitutionalization
with privatization. And I
think certainly, you know,
the State workers that
were at the institutions
were very concerned in
terms of losing their jobs.
So, these were...
the issues at Moose Lake were a little bit
different than, say they were at Faribault,
which I think served only
people with developmental
disabilities. But they were on a smaller
scale, and in a way that was good.
Because we approached those issues
in Moose Lake, they were containable,
they were a minor piece
of the problem, so that
when we subsequently
went to start negotiating at Faribault,
we had some positive experience to build on.