Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

AUSTIN – Unlicensed board and care homes, denounced as "mental health slums" by North Texas' top mental health official two years ago, could be regulated by cities and counties under a bill the House passed Friday.

The measure would require the Texas Health and Human Services Commission to set standards for the homes, which have escaped state regulation because they don't provide medical and therapeutic services.

However, it would be up to local governments to choose whether to license and inspect some of Texas' estimated 4,000 private group homes, at least 350 of which are in Dallas.

The Dallas Morning News has reported estimates by mental health officials and advocates that as many as half of the homes exploit disabled and chronically mentally ill residents for their federal disability checks, providing poor food and bug-ridden shelter.

"The cities need help" to force improvements, said Rep. Jose Menendez, the bill's author.

"We just don't want people to be fed dog food and to have people running in the streets without any clothes on," said Menendez, D-San Antonio.

The bill, approved on a 140-2 vote, now heads to the Senate. On Thursday, the Senate approved a bill calling for state regulation of the homes, at a cost of $2 million over two years. Menendez's local option bill, though, would spend just $500,000 a year – for five grants of $100,000 each to cities and counties that want to regulate the homes.

Two years ago, bills by Menendez and Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, died because of their price tags. The state Department of Aging and Disability Services estimated then that the proposed regulation would cost $50 million in its first two years.

Shapleigh's bill this year calls for the Department of State Health Services to issue licenses and set rules. The cost would drop some because local governments would be encouraged to enter into pacts with the department, under which they'd do the inspections themselves.

Shapleigh said, though, that local inspections alone can't explain a $46 million decrease in the agency's cost estimate. He said he chose the health department because it came in with an estimate $2 million lower than DADS'.

Rep. Jim Jackson, R-Carrollton, a former Dallas County commissioner, questioned whether better homes will result if the state doesn't put any money into reimbursing them for their care. "If you want any higher quality, somebody's got to put up some money," he said.

The homes' biggest source of income is residents' Social Security checks, though Dallas County pays for some of the indigent and homeless to live in the homes.