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Families Of Disabled New Yorkers Win Chance To Argue Against Relocations

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Families of disabled adults claimed a victory Friday night, as Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a bill giving them a chance to go before a judge and plead their cases about why they should be allowed to stay in their current facilities.

As CBS2's Jessica Schneider reported, the families are crediting a story earlier this week on CBS2 for getting Cuomo's signature on a bill supporting their cause.

The state had wanted to move Cheryl Lloyd's 22-year-old son from his current facility, but his mother said the new place is just plain dangerous.

"There is no way they're going to bring my son here," Lloyd told CBS2's Jessica Schneider.

Lloyd said she was devastated by the trash-littered, run-down apartment in East New York, Brooklyn, the state says her 22-year-old autistic son must move to from his current care facility just south of Boston.

"The pain is so great because my son deserves better than this," she said.

Christopher Linton went to live at the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center in Massachusetts when he was just 8 years old because the state didn't have adequate facilities for him and the more than 400 others with similar disabilities in New York.

In 2012, the state began yanking those now-adults back, putting them in what the Office for People with Developmental Disabilities calls "appropriate community-based settings," Schneider reported earlier this week.

"For them to offer a place like this, they're not living up to their responsibility," Lloyd said.

With the passage of the bill, Lloyd's voice will be heard. Several families have already thanked CBS2 for the getting the word out.

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