NASHVILLE (AP) - The last six residents of a 90-year-old Nashville facility for the disabled will relocate this month to small group homes.
WPLN-FM reports (http://bit.ly/1Mmalj0) the Clover Bottom Developmental Center opened in 1923. By its peak in the 1960s it housed 1,500 people with physical and intellectual disabilities.
Accused in the 1990s of simply warehousing the disabled, Clover Bottom was slated to close in 2010 but has faced numerous delays.
At a closing ceremony on Thursday, Department of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Commissioner Debra Payne said the move to group homes has taken time because the department wanted to do it right.
Payne said that for many years there was no non-institutional model for supporting people with disabilities. Now people with disabilities often live more independently and work in the community.