01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, May 21, 2006

Sometimes, it works. A state official sees a problem, an injustice, and makes some calls. It helps that she has done the research and knows what she's talking about. She points out how something is terribly, hurtfully wrong and totally unnecessary.

And because Rep. Eileen Naughton, a Warwick Democrat, asked the right questions in the right places and brought a bunch of people together around one man's plight, Joey Lacerdi came back home Monday night.

"It's being in my own place, the freedom of doing what I want to do when I want to do it," said Lacerdi.

He is back in his apartment in Middletown, the one outfitted to make his debilitating multiple sclerosis much easier to deal with. He is back where his computer, his music and video games, and the van parked outside give him a life.

For nine months, he watched a lot of television in a nursing home in Newport. There was no good reason for him to be there that long among people with whom he had very little in common. He was there, a few miles removed from a much better life, because there was no one willing or able to look at his situation and say how terribly wrong and wasteful it was.

For a man whose future is so uncertain, the empty days and months seem cruelly unnecessary. Lacerdi fell victim to a system that has yet to figure out how best to get people out of nursing homes and back in the community.

When Naughton read about Lacerdi's situation in The Journal three weeks ago, she said it made her sick. She called it disturbing. It also reminded her how woefully behind the times Rhode Island is in terms of putting those with disabilities in the best possible surroundings and giving them the best possible life.

Some states have programs for periodic oversight of these cases, she said. Some states, including Massachusetts, have programs to provide money to renovate homes to make them accessible and livable for those with disabilities.

Rhode Island has mostly uncertainty about what the heck to do. And Lacerdi paid a high price for it.

He is 26 and has been in a wheelchair since he was 12. He started living on his own when he was 19. He started classes at Bristol Community College in Fall River. Life got better for him and his mother, Donna Silvia, his caregiver for a lot of years and his most persistent advocate.

He entered Heatherwood Nursing Home after suffering a broken leg and facial injuries when his wheelchair fell from a van lift.

After the accident, Life Inc., the agency that had been providing his care and making it possible for him to live in the apartment, stopped providing services and left him in limbo.

The obligations and legal responsibilities of an agency providing care for the disabled are yet another area where the state has no clear guidelines. I called Life Inc. to ask why the agency had dropped Lacerdi as a client. Agency officials did not respond.

If Naughton had not intervened, Lacerdi might have stayed in the nursing home, in a life without any real stimulation or purpose, for a very long time.

"We told Joey he was going home Monday," she said. "He could not be disappointed again."

He wasn't. He's back home. He leaves behind him the question of how many more disabled Rhode Islanders are waiting to be rescued.

As a state legislator, Naughton has looked at the way in which those with disabilities, both children and adults, are moved from basic maintenance in nursing homes to community-based programs. She looked at waiting lists. She found that in many cases, such as Lacerdi's, the federal mandate to put people in the "least restricted" environment was not being followed.

She read about Joey and called the Rhode Island Department of Mental Health, Retardation and Hospitals (MHRH). She called Donna Silvia and the Disability Law Center. She talked with the people at Rocky Knoll, the small, family-run residential facility in Tiverton that has submitted a proposal to take over Lacerdi's care and put him back in the apartment. Rocky Knoll had already purchased a van and taken Lacerdi on some day trips.

She found still more vagueness in the application process that would allow Rocky Knoll to expand its license and take over Lacerdi's residential care. The state was holding up the application, asking for more and more information.

"We need more providers," said Naughton. "Otherwise, we'll be building more nursing homes."

Naughton cut through the bureaucratic debris. She made it possible for Rocky Knoll officials to go to MHRH and pick up their new license.

"A lot of people came together so Joey could go home," she said.

She wants to put together a task force that would move across the state and listen to disabled people and their families and their service providers. She wants to come up with state laws that would be as clear as they could possibly be and save people such as Joey Lacerdi from losing vital days and months and years.

Someday, she wants Lacerdi to testify.

For now, he just wants to get back to real living. In a few months, he's thinking about going back to school.

And as soon as he can he wants to thank Eileen Naughton for helping him get back home.

bkerr@projo.com / (401) 277-7252