Barbara Blum, a former high-ranking social services official who found homes for hundreds of mentally disabled people after their mistreatment at the Willowbrook State School on Staten Island became a national scandal in the 1970s, died on Saturday in Albany. She was 82.
The cause was congestive heart failure, her son Thomas said.
Ms. Blum was New York State's social services commissioner from 1977 to 1982, and she earlier worked for Mayor John V. Lindsay's administration, leading a task force on mental health and retardation and overseeing services for disadvantaged children. But perhaps her most visible impact was made in rescuing abused Willowbrook residents by finding them safe places to live in group homes.
The deplorable conditions at Willowbrook, a state-run institution, seized the nation's attention in 1972, when Geraldo Rivera, then a reporter for WABC-TV in New York, put a spotlight on them, showing children lying naked on the floor, their bodies contorted, their feces spread on walls. His reports were broadcast nationally. More than 5,400 people lived on the Willowbrook campus, making it the biggest state-run institution for mentally disabled people in the United States.
Willowbrook residents and their parents, aided by civil libertarians and mental health advocates, sued New York State to prevent further deterioration and to establish that residents had a constitutional right to treatment. The state settled with the plaintiffs and signed a court decree in April 1975 promising to improve conditions at Willowbrook and to transfer residents to new homes.
Ms. Blum, a state social services official at the time, was placed in charge of the Metropolitan Placement Unit, set up to find homes for the residents in what would be, at the time, the largest placement of mentally disabled people in the nation's history. The decree ordering the "deinstitutionalization," which had become a national trend, called for all but 250 of the residents to be placed in group homes or foster care by 1981.
The task promised to be daunting. There were no community organizations trained in performing such a transfer, and many established social services groups refused to participate, doubting that the task could be done at all, much less on time.
Others had turned down the job, and Ms. Blum later expressed suspicion that Gov. Hugh L. Carey's aides had chosen her to lead the unit, a largely autonomous body, so that she would be the scapegoat if the effort failed.
"There seemed to be a kind of precipitous desire to see that I was there for the court," she said in an interview for the 1984 book "The Willowbrook Wars," by David and Sheila Rothman.
As it happened, logistical and legal difficulties delayed the emptying of Willowbrook until 1987. But working with Roman Catholic and black community organizations, Ms. Blum found more than 100 homes for more than 1,000 Willowbrook residents despite meeting intense opposition in neighborhoods; in some instances, she was pelted with eggs, and her nose was broken.
To Ms. Blum, the assignment was also a personal mission. Her second son, Jonathan, was profoundly affected by autism.
Barbara Jean Rebecca Bennett was born on Jan. 18, 1930, in Beaver, Pa. She graduated from Vassar College as a mathematics major. In 1951, she married Robert M. Blum, who survives her. In addition to her sons Thomas and Jonathan, she is also survived by her son Stephen; a daughter, Jennifer Weinschenk; and five grandchildren.
Robert Blum, a former Olympic fencer, became an aide to Mr. Lindsay, first in Congress and then at City Hall. Mr. Blum frequently told Mr. Lindsay how hard it was to find help for Jonathan. He and his wife had banded together with other parents to start their own nursery school and an organization to lobby for mentally disabled people. One of the mayor's first official acts was to appoint Ms. Blum to the New York City Community Mental Health Board.
She went on to a number of city government posts, including as deputy commissioner for mental health and mental retardation services, commissioner for special services to children and director of a council on child welfare that encompassed 50 city agencies.
In 1973, she was named assistant executive director of the state's social welfare board. In 1975, she was given the additional job of heading the Metropolitan Placement Unit. In 1977, Governor Carey appointed her commissioner of the State Department of Social Services.
In later years, among other positions, she was a senior fellow at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.
Six years after the last residents left Willowbrook, its buildings became a campus of the College of Staten Island.
Jonathan Blum has lived for years in a group home in Brooklyn, where, his brother Thomas said, he has achieved a regular schedule of walks, exercise and going to the store to buy a soda.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: October 12, 2012
An earlier version of this obituary mistakenly referred to Robert M. Blum as Robert R. Blum. The article also misstated where Jonathan Blum has lived for years in a group home. It is Brooklyn, not the Bronx.
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