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Disclosure · Authorship · Accountability

About
This Site.

Transparency is not a disclaimer. It is part of the argument. This page tells you exactly who built this site, why, and what relationship it has to the organizations named within it.

Authorship

Who Built This Site

This site was produced by Front Porch Cohousing, a Pennsylvania-based organization developing Coliving Homes in Neuroinclusive Planned Communities for adults with autism, Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, traumatic brain injury, and related intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD).

Front Porch Cohousing was founded by a parent of an adult with IDD who experienced firsthand the gap between the promise of community living and the regulatory reality that makes the best version of that promise legally impossible to build.

The content on this site — the historical record, the fiscal analysis, the regulatory critique — is documented fact, not opinion. Every claim is sourced. Every figure is grounded in court records, federal studies, or the Commonwealth's own published data.

Relationship to Companion Sites

Why a Separate Site?

The Pennhurst Declaration exists as a companion to — but deliberately separate from — the two primary Front Porch Cohousing websites. The content presented here is documented, sourced, and accurate; it is also incendiary in the specific sense that it names institutional failures, regulatory overcorrections, and a $140 billion unfunded liability that the state has not publicly acknowledged.

That content is too important to omit. It is also too sharp to include as core content on sites designed to build community, attract residents, and engage institutional partners in good faith. This site exists so the record can be told in full — without softening it for an audience that deserves to hear it plainly.

Sources & Editorial Standards

How This Site Was Built

Every factual claim on this site is drawn from one or more of the following primary source categories:

Federal Court Record
Halderman v. Pennhurst State School & Hospital, E.D. Pa. 1977–1984, including Judge Broderick's 1978 findings of fact and the subsequent consent decree.
Federal Research
The Pennhurst Longitudinal Study (Conroy & Bradley, 1985), commissioned by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — the definitive five-year outcome study of deinstitutionalization.
Pennsylvania ODP Data
The Office of Developmental Programs' published waitlist data, HCBS Settings Rule implementation guidance, and the 1991 CHIPP program cost benchmarks.
Historical Record
Documented accounts of Pennhurst and Byberry from the Philadelphia Inquirer, Life magazine (1946), the Philadelphia Encyclopedia, and the Preserve Pennhurst archive.
Documentary Sources
Ward Files documentary productions on Pennhurst and Byberry, used with attribution for educational and advocacy purposes.

Financial figures presented in the Fiscal Crisis and Solution sections are estimates based on the above sources, CPI inflation adjustment, and standard endowment modeling. They are presented with explicit uncertainty ranges and stress-test disclosures. No figure is presented as precise where it is not.

Legal Notice

A Note on Tone and Intent

This site makes sharp arguments. It names institutional failures. It presents a fiscal indictment of Pennsylvania's current approach to IDD housing and services. It does not do so out of malice toward any individual official, agency, or institution.

The argument is not that Pennsylvania's officials intended to break the promise made to adults with IDD. The argument is that institutional inertia, regulatory overcorrection, and the absence of political will have produced the same outcome as intent — and that the people on Pennsylvania's Emergency waitlist cannot afford to wait for the distinction to matter.

Truth is an absolute defense. Every claim on this site is true to the best of our documented knowledge. If any claim is factually incorrect, we will correct it promptly upon notification. Contact: [email protected]