Lakeland's CIRV to shutdown

By PAUL DELANEY

Staff Reporter 

(Editor’s note: This is the first of a two-part examination of Lakeland Village’s College In-Resident Volunteer (CIRV) program which is slated for closure in 2019.)

No matter if it’s the family at home, Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., state government in Olympia or places in between, there are always difficult decisions to be made when it comes to stretching dollars.

And that debate has come to Lakeland Village where a move has been made to disband the facility’s College In-Resident Volunteer (CIRV) program, in place for nearly a half century.

Lakeland Village is a state operated, 24-hour facility that provides all facets of training, education and healthcare for approximately 210 individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

According to a 2012 Cheney Free Press story, the CIRV program had humble beginnings in 1970, starting with just 10 women. They lived in studio apartments behind one of the current apartment buildings. Four decades later the CIRV program had over 40 students involved. Once passing a background check, students then go through training and volunteer for 15 hours each week with Lakeland Village clients.

In exchange, they receive housing, utilities and have the option to eat at the facility’s dining hall. Volunteers live across the street from the main facility, where three buildings are split into two- and one-bedroom apartments. Students typically leave the program with around 2,000 hours in volunteer time to put on their resume.

There are a variety of different career paths taken by students in the CIRV program, including many who are pursuing a degree in a medical or social services field. A majority of students in the program attend Eastern Washington University, but nearly every higher education facility in the Spokane area has a student working in the CIRV program.

But in a time when more state money — 50 percent of the general fund in fact— is earmarked for public education, there are cuts having to be made to all kinds of programs.

Even those with the best intentions at heart.

And maybe there is no one more at the center of the pending 2019 shutdown than current Lakeland Acting Superintendent, Sharlene Gentry. She began a long career in the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) after starting as a CIRV and now is Lakeland’s boss.

She confirmed what many who have served in the program had heard — and feared.

“The College-In-Resident Volunteer program at Lakeland Village is scheduled to be closed next year (2019),” Gentry said.

With the aging residences built in the 1950s needing updates — roofs, plumbing, electrical and cosmetic — DSHS officials determined that the cost/benefit ratio was not worth keeping the program.

“Our primary goal is to work towards transforming people’s lives and those are the people with disabilities,” Gentry said. “Within that, there are a lot of things that we do, which includes the infrastructure of Lakeland Village and trying to maintain that.”

That’s the decision driving the shutdown.

“I was quoted, and this was a couple of years ago, they determined $1.6 million per building,” in updates would be required, Gentry said.

That could include three different buildings, originally built many, many years ago for staff that worked at Lakeland Village. In the 1970s, the apartments housed Lakeland residents who were getting ready to move to the community. Later the CIRV students were housed there.

“We always have to remember what our focus is, and our focus is the residents that live at Lakeland Village, and meeting their needs and giving them the best possible life while teaching them appropriate social skills, behavioral skills and that kind of thing,” Gentry said.

That means meeting safety codes and rules related to fire suppression as well, Gentry said. “We have to prioritize and the residents are first priority,” she said.

The CIRV program is valuable, Gentry said. But the ability to make it pencil out is just not there. “It would cost more to repair/replace the buildings (than we can get out of the service),” she added.

The emotional argument — at this point at least — is not able to outdistance the country of dollars and cents.

Longtime Lakeland employee and Medical Lake tennis coach Leroy Lemaster has been the CIRV program coordinator since the early 1980s. He has seen hundreds of students come through it during that time, he said in the 2012 story. For many, being a CIRV student is their first step in a higher education career from high school.

(Next week the Cheney Free Press will present the thoughts and stories of many former CIRV program enrollees who are passionate about trying to save an institution that has been in place for nearly half of Lakeland Village’s 113-year existence.)

Paul Delaney can be reached at pdelaney@cheneyfreepress.com.