AFSCME president Danny Homan (file photo)
The head of the union that represents workers at the state-run Mental Health Institutes in Clarinda and Mount Pleasant says the governor’s plan to close Clarinda will mean some violent “predators” will be placed in privately-run nursing homes.
AFSCME Council 61 president Danny Homan says no nursing home in Iowa wants any of the four convicted sex offenders who are now housed in Clarinda’s psychiatric unit for geriatric patients.
“One of the individuals in this facility has already been in a nursing home and has already raped a resident of that nursing home and this director and this governor (are) talking about putting these people back into nursing homes,” Homan says. “That is criminal in my mind.” Homan was among the more than 300 people who gathered in Clarinda Saturday for a meeting with key state officials who will oversee the governor’s proposal to close Clarinda’s Mental Health Institute.
Homan says none of the concerns raised by the audience were adequately answered. “This is a dog-and-pony show being put on by Governor Branstad and the Department of Human Services,” Homan said. Agency officials held a similar town-hall meeting in Mount Pleasant two weeks ago to discuss the closure of that community’s Mental Health Institute.
(Reporting by, Chuck Morris, KMA, Shenandoah)