ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, December 15, 1996 TAG: 9612160103
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-18 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: DUBLIN
SOURCE: ROBERT FREIS STAFF WRITER
Terminally ill, he wanted to spend the final days of his life among familiar surroundings. So they granted this basic request and allowed him to die at the place he had come to accept as his home.
Watching this long-time resident dissipate was hard on everybody at Fairview Home. The vigil at his bedside meant longer hours and deeper heartache for both the staff and the other people who live there.
But life hadn't been fair to this man, saddled as he was with a mental deficiency that precluded a normal existence and landed him in an adult home.
So Fairview Home gave him a final gesture of decency, so he didn't have to take his last breath among strangers.
Administrator Kathy Crews-Robertson says that kind of decision - balancing business against caring - crosses her desk daily: How best to care for 65 "forgotten people" with a small budget at a publicly owned adult care home few know about.
"Do I put this man out? You know they'll only go to the street, or fall through the cracks. What do you do for them?" she asks herself.
At least the man who died had the resources to avoid being buried in the impromptu graveyard behind Fairview Home. A $500 burial allowance from the government won't get indigent occupants of the home very far when they die.
So two former Fairview Home residents lie buried a few yards away. Crews-Robertson predicts there will be more graves there someday.
But beds don't stay empty at Fairview Home very long. There's always someone suffering from mental illness to take their place - and many others who the home cannot accommodate.
Fairview Home is a long-time presence in the New River Valley. It's one of the state's last publicly owned adult care homes, and the great-grandson of the old-fashion poor farm, where indigent citizens were sent to work off their debts communally.
It's also the kind of place where the staff will stage a public open house - and have nobody attend. Not many people have visited the one-story facility off Cougar Trail Road in Pulaski County. Crews-Robertson said some of the residents have been virtually abandoned by their families, as if Fairview Home were a warehouse for the marginal.
Earlier this year, it seemed that this large-scale homeless prevention shelter might be out in the cold itself. There were problems with the bookkeeping, which threw the 70-year-old home into a temporary tailspin.
A financial review said the books were a confused mess and the state had to investigate several complaints, a situation that was serious enough to threaten Fairview Home's license and have the home dunned by the Internal
Revenue Service for late payments.
Fairview Home hired an independent financial analyst and a new bookkeeper. No money was found to be missing, and Crews-Robertson says everything's been patted back into shape. The state also said it's satisfied with the "corrective action."
Now that the period Crews-Robertson called "six months of hell" is over, Fairview Home is back to being obscure. Still, the episode left its mark.
Soon after Fairview Home's troubles made the newspaper, Pulaski County's Board of Supervisors talked about selling its share of the home. (Pulaski's 33 percent is the largest share; Montgomery County owns 30 percent; Giles County 21; Radford 8 percent; and Craig County 7 percent.)
Word of the home's troubles also spread among the residents and created anxiety among those who understood what was going on.
One of those was David Hale, a 65-year-old former employee of Pulaski County's school system. He said he worried about what might happen to some of Fairview Home's indigent residents if the home were closed or sold. "They didn't have anything saved back."
Crews-Robertson said she accepts responsibility for the bookkeeping problems. But she resents any negativity about Fairview Home that resulted from the publicity and the "unnecessary strife" it caused home residents.
"If the community really knew, this is a place the community can be proud of," said Peggy Johnson, the home's medical room supervisor.
Fairview Home residents who can process and respond to the question agree.
"I like it very much. It's a complete surroundings. You have what you need if you're willing to accept it," said Hale, who suffers from the effects of a head injury he received in an auto accident.
"All the staff is good to you. It's all right," said Vivian Brown, a Pulaski County native who has diabetes and other physical problems.
Hale and Brown are among the more able Fairview Home occupants who watch out for their fellow residents. There are a wide variety of reasons and circumstances - such as birth defects, mental illness, physical or substance abuse - that have led people to the facility.
There are about 41 men and 25 women, 19-84, with backgrounds and family histories that range from "wonderful to pathetic," Crews-Robertson said. Some of them catch a bus from Fairview Home each weekday to work. Fifteen of the home's residents are registered to vote. There's also a married couple living there.
Others are far less capable, ambulatory yet living in their own child-like world. Anna Lee Sink has her doll baby at her side. Susie Robinson totes her transistor radio playing country music. LeRoy "Cowboy" Handy has his hat, gun belt and toy six-shooters. They're friendly and intensely curious.
The common factor among this diverse crowd is that none can take care of himself or herself or maintain an independent life. They need to be supported in most aspects of living, and watched over.
They also share poverty. Only three of the home's 65 residents pay their own way. The rest are wholly dependent on government subsidies, which cover the $695 monthly charge to reside at Fairview Home and $40-$60 in spending money.
The state says Fairview Home can't charge more more than that, which keeps the facility in a financial straitjacket, Crews-Robertson said. "It's definitely nonprofit. We give new meaning to the term, but that's OK."
It's hard to pay Fairview Home's 35 staff members a decent wage, she said. It will get harder still when the federal minimum wage increases next year and state regulations for staff training become more stringent.
Most private adult care homes don't want indigent residents who survive only by government grants because they don't pay enough to be profitable, Crews-Robertson said. So Fairview Home gets the outcasts, mostly people from the localities that own the facility. Some, however, come from as far away as Richmond or Fairfax.
Fairview Home's 25-year-old building is in decent shape, Crews-Robertson says, although the staff has to be patient or creative when it comes to fixing problems such as a collapsed drain pipe in the kitchen. It's been two years since the home had to approach the localities that own the building for money for improvements or repairs, such as a new heating and cooling system or smoke detectors for the rooms.
Beyond those expenses, Fairview Home is financially self-sustaining, with a $478,635 budget for the 1994-95 fiscal year.
The fact that it goes along on its own contributes to Fairview Home's isolation. Even local social services directors say they don't know much about it, except that Fairview Home has a reputation for taking good care of its residents.
Residents have double-occupancy rooms, some Spartan, others customized like college dormitories. There's a large dining room, an activities room and television room where residents spend their time. No fence surrounds the home, despite occasional complaints from the small houses across Hatcher Road.
"I'm not going to cage these people in," Crews-Robertson said.
Now that it's Christmas, the attention Fairview Home residents receive hits a yearly upswing. Civic and church groups come by or pick the residents up for activities. The home has been assembling a float for Pulaski's Christmas parade.
"They're like children. They'll see somebody coming in with packages and get real excited," said Anita Lyons, the home's activities director.
Yet Crews-Robertson said some residents also have a cynical attitude about the holidays. "People do things for them once per year, and it's gone. That's hard for them to understand."
Abandonment is something they live with. Some residents rarely - if ever - see their families.
Anna Lee Sink is fortunate, because her sister drives up from Salem for a visit regularly.
"She loves it here. This is home to her," said Josephine Edwards. "She lived with Mother for 55 years, but then we said 'What are are we going to do? None of us can take care of her.'
"These people are like family," she said.
Indeed, Fairview Home's staff has accepted the responsibility of being surrogate kinfolk to the residents.
"I grew attached," said Krista Wilson, a dietary aide. "They changed my life. They touched my heart. I know there's somebody out there that needs me."
"It's the most rewarding job I've ever had," said Peggy Johnson. "They're so appreciative of whatever you do and show that. They're very loving people."
"You think they need you. You find out you need them just as much."
Crews-Robertson came back to Fairview Home as administrator 16 years after working there as a staff member. "Once it becomes part of you, it always is. You have a whole lot of heart for the home."
That sense of devotion and commitment carries the staff through the physical and emotional challenges of the job, she said. It also sustained Fairview Home's staff during the hard times this year.
"I've thought a lot about it," said Johnson. "But for the grace of God, it could be us."
LENGTH: Long : 185 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: GENE DALTON/Staff. 1. Kathy Crews-Robertson returned asby CNBFairview Home's administrator after working on the facility's staff
16 years earlier. 2. Betty Bowles (above), a 68-year-old native of
Narrows, has been living at Fairview Home for 18 years. Mentally
disabled, she misses her twin brother, who also lived at the
facility until a year ago, when he was transferred to Heritage Hall
nursing home in Blacksburg. 3. Pulaski County native Billy Taylor,
69, is mentally disabled. He has been living at Fairview Home since
1988. 4. Susie Robinson loves to play country music on her
transistor radio. A Pulaski County native, she is 47 years old and
has been at Fairview Home for a year. 5. Charlie Bailey (above), a
Fairview Home resident for 16 years, is an 81-year-old deaf mute
with mental disabilities. 6. LeRoy "Cowboy" Handy (right) always
wears his hat, holster and toy six-shooters. He's 62 years old, a
mentally disabled Pulaski County native who has lived at Fairview
Home for more than three years. 7. Anna Lee Sink (below) is never
far from her doll. A 65-year-old Montgomery County native, she was
born with Down syndrome. She has been living at Fairview Home for 10
years. 8. Anna Lee Sink likes to sit on Kathy Crews-Robertson's lap
when she visits her office. 9. An impromptu graveyard holds the
remains of two former Fairview Home residents (ran on NRV-1).