Two months after federal investigators described grim conditions at the Lubbock State School, advocates for people with disabilities are calling on lawmakers to close it.

"It's truly disturbing to think that there are individuals living in an environment of abuse and neglect and violence and the state is paying . . . for that to happen," said Jeff Garrison-Tate, chairman of the Disability Policy Consortium, a group of statewide organizations that is planning a rally today at the state Capitol.

They'll ask lawmakers to invest in programs that allow people to live at home rather than in institutions.

U.S. Department of Justice investigators found that the Lubbock State School, a residence for 350 people with mental retardation, "substantially departs from accepted professional standards of care."

It fails to provide adequate health care and protect residents from harm, due in part to staffing shortages, investigators wrote in a report to Gov. Rick Perry in December.

But Lubbock resident Roseanna Davidson, whose 26-year-old daughter, Susan, has lived at Lubbock State School for almost a decade, said the place is safe.

"We couldn't sleep at night if we didn't think she received wonderful care," said Davidson, president of the Lubbock State School Family Association.

And state Rep. Delwin Jones, R-Lubbock, said he thinks the Disability Policy Consortium "is sticking their nose in some business that's not theirs."

Jones said problems found by the federal investigators have been corrected.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Aging and Disability Services, which oversees Texas' 11 state schools, including one in Austin, said the agency cannot speak about the investigation because it is still developing a response to federal officials.

Federal investigators found widespread neglect and possible abuse.

One resident was discovered to have sores that were a result of workers "leaving her lying in urine-soaked diapers." A staff person assigned to one-on-one supervision failed to notice that another resident had fastened a belt around his neck, the report said.

Between the time federal investigators visited the state school in June 2005 and filed the report in December 2006, 17 residents died.

One woman's death was particularly disturbing, the report said, because staff members found her unresponsive but panicked and did not take her pulse or initiate CPR and delayed calling EMS. Staff members also falsified records to wrongly state that the woman had been checked regularly.