The doubts grow

EVEN in California, most relaxed of states, they are starting to worry about “care in the community”. California has its share of mentally retarded people and sufferers from autism, cerebral palsy and epilepsy. It has six residential institutions which currently look after 3,362 of them. Another 141,975 come under the care of 21 regional centres; some live with their families, some in licensed care homes, a few in their own apartments, but all of them are watched over by the regional centres. The balance has lately been tilting away from the residential institutions (their number fell from seven to six last year, and there will be only five after June), and some Californians want to stop the trend.