Bring Nancy Home!
We are Jeff and Elsie Golin, devoted parents of Nancy Golin, our beautiful, happy, sweet autistic adult daughter. Like many families, we decided when she was 2 that we would raise her at home with us and protect her, instead of following a doctor’s suggestion that we institutionalize her. We raised her in safety and love since she was born and have enjoyed many happy times with her. She is now 44 years old. 
In 2001, when she was 31, she was kidnapped by the Palo Alto police under color of law after she innocently wandered away from us. We immediately reported her missing and searched for her. The cops quickly 
found her but held her all night without disclosing it, pretending that she was still missing, and claiming it was somehow our fault. The nightmare escalated, after she was briefly returned to us for an hour. She was then inappropriately sent to a dangerous psych ward. We tried to get her back, but were attacked. Since then she was illegally sent to a group home and forced to live there exclusively with other developmentally disabled people. They trampled on our rights and we sued. She has been violated, drugged, maimed and injured. We miss her every day and cry for her return. We have a home waiting for her and the taxpayers do not have to pay for it.
Nancy has been denied the right to live at home by the San Andreas Regional Center for the past 14 years. They won’t listen. They limit our contacts with her. We have never stopped fighting for her return. Nancy wants desperately to be home with us. She has indicated to us and everyone in every way she can that she only wants to return to our love, comfort and safety, which she faithfully trusts. She is sad and lonely where she is.
Returning home to us is Nancy’s most cherished wish in life. We desperately want to grant her that wish.
Many parents of autistic children get this same terrifyingly uncaring message from Regional Centers at age 18, trying to kidnap their children into group homes and day programs for the money. Parents of disabled children specially understand and can empathize with the depths and breadth of the love we feel for her. All the Regional Centers really care about is the money. We are desperate for help to ensure that Nancy has all the protections legally required by the Lanterman Act . Somehow, all our years of care and advocacy during every health crisis and years of very happy times evaporated, when the state decided to try to criminalize us for our efforts. We want go back to being a happy family again that can interact freely and caringly. 
The state officials that did this were finally put on trial in a state civil suit this year in Redwood City. We refused to settle. We are being helped by compassionate civil rights attorneys, including David J. Beauvais , of Oakland. The defendants got away with brazenly boasting that they had broken the laws and portrayed themselves as proud heroes for doing it. It was a travesty. They admitted that they did this sort of thing all the time to thousands of others and didn’t need to obey disabled people’s rights. They said they didn't need to follow laws. They showed how little they really care for our children whom they are supposed to assist. It was unbelievable. She was raised as a normal person accepted by all in the general community. Yet, Nancy remains imprisoned in the group home where she is getting injured by other residents and medically mistreated. Whereas she used to have a normal posture, she has become habitually bent over in abjection and we cannot comfort her. We face the living nightmare of being forced to sit idly by and watch without being able to stop them from injuring her and filling her life with sadness and loneliness. 
To keep up the fight for Nancy we urgently need to raise money purely for frugal legal costs, such as $10,000 for a vital trial transcript. No amount is too small but please, if you can donate more, donate what you can to help us reach our family goal of bringing Nancy back home.
