Community care benefits disabled adults, attorney says

Louis Bullock, a Tulsa attorney, who represented parents who sued the state and won the closure of the Hissom Memorial Center in Sand Springs, said community-based care is better for people with severe disabilities.

"What this experience taught us is that people with severe disabilities thrive living in the community and institutional care is inappropriate for their needs," Bullock said. "Institutions provide a size 9 shoe to fit everybody. People with special needs have complex disabilities. Their care is not individualized when they are in an institution."

When a judge ordered the Hissom center to be closed, Bullock said many families worried.