The “haven” is actually a campus of close to two dozen buildings on 200 acres outside Laurel, Maryland. At the peak of its 66-year history, it held some 1,300 D.C. residents with intellectual and developmental disabilities. In 1976, a group of parents sued the city over conditions there. Two years later, a federal judge ordered it closed. In 1991, it finally did. Today it stands abandoned and overgrown.
But even though D.C. was one of the first places in the country to completely abandon the use of institutions for people with developmental disabilities, the broader process of integration has been much slower. D.C. residents with disabilities may no longer live in segregated and isolated facilities like Forest Haven, but they also don’t enjoy some of the same chances and choices — especially in employment — as everyone else.
And while it has been 25 years since Forest Haven closed, the 1976 lawsuit that led to its closure remains in litigation. In February, the lawsuit entered its 40th year, evidence of the long and bumpy road D.C. has traveled in pushing to integrate people with disabilities.