(Radio Iowa) – The first set of residents with profound intellectual disabilities moved out of the state-run Glenwood Resource Center last week. The facility, where over 150 adults were living this spring, is scheduled to close in 2024. Iowa Health and Human Services director Kelly Garcia says 27 community providers have stepped forward as options for Glenwood residents.

Providers have been meeting on the Glenwood campus with the legal guardians for residents to discuss their options for care elsewhere. The state will host another “provider fair” at the state-run Woodward Resource Center this fall.

Garcia says decisions need to be made, to ensure residents get the care and services they need when they leave the facility. Glenwood’s closure follows a federal investigation of allegations that residents were being mistreated and were not getting adequate medical care. The Department of Justice concluded that with the right support services, nearly all residents could live in community-based settings. Garcia says very few Glenwood residents will be transferred to nursing homes.

Garcia is now the director of an expanded agency, renamed the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services. Plans are underway to fold the Department on Aging into the agency. And the state is hiring a Califoria company to join two other private firms managing Iowa Medicaid, which Garcia says now provides health care services for one-third of the state’s residents.

Garcia made her comments during an interview with Radio Iowa.