Forty-one-year-old Matt Mitchell was born brain damaged. He can’t cook dinner, make his bed or bathe himself. He can’t read, write or dial the phone. Matt lives under the constant supervision of his parents, Chris and Verle Mitchell, in southeast Bend.

But like any child, Matt needs to step out from under his parents’ wings sometimes. And, Matt needs a plan for 24-hour care for the day his parents aren’t around to take care of him.

He has been on a waiting list to receive daytime job and recreation opportunities for several years. His parents are also waiting to find out if someday he can live in a 24-hour residential home.

That waiting may soon come to an end for Matt and about 3,000 Medicaid-eligible, developmentally disabled Oregon residents who are waiting for help from the state. They will benefit from the settlement of a lawsuit that goes into effect July 1.

At least 160 people in Deschutes County, 26 in Crook County and 27 in Jefferson County are on waiting lists for services such as help with grocery shopping, daytime work or recreation programs for those who live independently or in 24-hour residential care.

Many have been waiting for more than five years, according to state documents.

Six Oregon families got fed up with waiting and sued the state last year. Settled as a class-action lawsuit, the Staley Settlement named after one of the families intends to reduce waiting lists and serve all eligible developmentally disabled in the state.

A six-year, approximately $500 million phase-in period will boost the number of services available, according to state documents.

Local agencies, such as Central Oregon Resources for Independent Living (CORIL), are gearing up for the expansion by looking for bigger facilities and seeking more work opportunities for the disabled, said Glenn Van Cise, executive director of CORIL.

”We’re all starting the process at this point,” Van Cise said. ”I expect people to start benefiting in about a year.”

When Matt doesn’t have anything to do daytime job training or recreation activities he sits in front of the television and gets cranky, his parents said. He gets an upset stomach. Usually quiet and gentle, he throws tantrums when he’s housebound.

”He has a need to be away from us, to feel independent,” said Verle. ”If I try to take him out all the time, I become the butt of his frustrations.”

His mom said the day programs are Matt’s social life, too.

”He needs the socialization so much,” she said. ”It’s a lonely life for him.”

The Staley Settlement will allocate an average of about $9,600 per person per year or $800 per person each month to families on the waiting lists, said Kathy Drew, program manager at Deschutes County Mental Health. Comprehensive, 24-hour care will cost more than $20,000 a year in come cases, according to the settlement.

The state is counting on some people not needing expensive or any service, said Ron Tamminga, a case manager at the same department.

Tamminga said similar lawsuits were successful in at least six other states, so Oregon didn’t fight the suit. In fact, Drew and Tamminga said most feedback showed general support for increasing funding and services for the disabled.

”The state was given six years to meet and fund the needs of everyone on the wait list,” said Tamminga. ”After that, then we’ll be serving everybody.”

Drew said: ”This not only provides universal service, it’ll make families more involved in designing the program.”

Families will be able to request the varying services they want: job services, cooking assistance, transportation, etc. Because the money is matched by federal dollars, caseworkers from a private, nonprofit brokerage serving Crook, Deschutes, Lake and Lane counties will assess clients and ensure their requested services are eligible under federal Title 19 guidelines.

Most caregivers aren’t yet sure how the program will work for them.

Sharyn Perrin, the mother and caretaker for Jim Perrin in La Pine, would like her son to get speech therapy if it’s an eligible service.

Jim, 47, is autistic. He talks in bursts of blurry syllables that sometimes only his mother understands. When he received speech therapy in the past, it helped clear up his language for a while, Sharyn said.

Jim’s eyes are sharp and his touch is gentle.

He leans toward his mom on the couch of their La Pine home as he snaps his jaws, and snorts softly.

He talks and interrupts Sharyn frequently. She strokes his shin and pauses to acknowledge his comments.

The matronly gray-haired mother eventually encourages her son to take his three-wheel bike for a short ride down the dead-end gravel road on which they live.

She smiles with pride when he returns and puts his bike away before returning to the living room.

The five-minute bike ride is one of the only things Jim does without his mother. Sharyn hopes that when the Staley Settlement is implemented, Jim gets into a day program for some independent socialization. And with a daytime work or recreation activity, he’ll need transportation, too.

She also hopes the settlement will allow her to receive occasional, weeklong respite care so she can catch up on some rest. The last time she was alone for any length of time was in 1994.

Jim has been on a waiting list for a work program for almost seven years, when they moved to Central Oregon. Sharyn, 66, has taken care of Jim full time with no services to help since she pulled him out of a boarding care facility in California in 1994.

Sharyn bathes her adult son, feeds him, and keeps him busy pulling weeds or hauling pine needles in a wheelbarrow. She takes him to California and Texas to visit family. For local fun, they watch movies in Bend and eat dinner at Izzy’s Pizza or Chan’s two restaurants that Jim can pronounce with a big smile.

The Mitchells, Matt’s parents, were raised in Bend, but left the area for a while during Verle’s career as a minister. When Verle retired and the family returned in 1996, Matt started a stint on a waiting list for job or recreation services.

But he’s luckier than everyone on waiting lists because he’s involved with the ”self-directed program” run through Deschutes County.

The program gets Matt involved with recreation programs offered by CORIL, and work programs collecting cans, landscaping, cleaning through the Opportunity Center, five hours a day, four days a week.

Both are nonprofit organizations that work with the county to get disabled people involved with the community. The program started a couple of years ago specifically to help individuals on waiting lists, and it will end when the Staley Settlement goes into effect.

But Matt’s needs reach beyond just keeping busy. He needs to be taken care of after Chris and Verle, in their late 60s, are gone. Chris, a breast cancer survivor, said her illness ”made us more aware of the fact that we won’t be here forever. We’re facing what’s best for Matt.”

They hope Matt will be able to ease into a 24-hour residential care facility while they are still here and able to visit frequently. They think the sooner he moves out, the easier it will be for him when they do pass away.

”He needs to make other relationships to fill the void,” Chris said.