CONCORD —Six individuals with serious mental illness believe they are needlessly being forced into New Hampshire Hospital and the Glencliff Home, when they should be receiving services in their communities.

The individuals, through the Disabilities Rights Center and other advocacy organizations, filed a class- action lawsuit Thursday in U.S. District Court in Concord Thursday claiming the state is violating the federal American with Disabilities Act, the Rehabilitation Act and the Nursing Home Reform Act by failing to provide community-based care.

The suit seeks to force the state to expand community-based services plaintiffs need to avoid future institutionalization.

Amy Messer, legal director for the Disabilities Rights Center said the individuals' lives have been interrupted, disrupted and even destroyed by their prolonged and needless stays at state institutions. “They share a common goal to be integrated into community life and not segregated from their peers,” she said at a press conference Thursday announcing the suit.

The suit comes less than a year after the U.S. Department of Justice found the state mental health system did not meet the needs of those it was intended to serve and violated their civil rights.

The state maintains it is in the early stages of a 10-year plan to address the issues raised by the federal investigation and the suit filed Thursday.

But one of the plaintiffs, Mandy D., a 22-year-old woman from Newport, said she has been “in and out of hospitals more times than I can count.

“I'd really like to stay out of hospitals, but sometimes I get so overwhelmed, the only place to go is a hospital because there are no community services,” she said.

She said with the proper community-based support, she could be a productive citizen. “Just because we have mental illness, doesn't mean we are any different,” Mandy said.

Messer said the state has known for some time its mental health system has been a failure.

She said reports by the Department of Health and Human Services in 2008 and 2009 acknowledge the system's failings and the impact that has had on individuals, families and communities.

She noted that in the 1980s, New Hampshire was at the forefront of delivering community-based services to people with disabilities, but has since reneged on its commitment and rates of institutionalization have risen.

Messer said from 1989 to 2010, the rate of institutionalization has risen 150 percent, going from 900 admissions to NHH, to 2,300.

She noted more die at the Glencliff Home than leave it.

“New Hampshire knows how to fix the problems,” Messer said, through community-based services including supportive housing, mobile crisis intervention, assertive community treatment and supported employment.

Instead, she said, the state has chosen to use much more expensive institutionalization instead of the less expensive, but more effective, community-based programs Attorneys for the plaintiffs said the state could be receiving a 50-percent federal match for community-based services, but the match is not available for institutionalized care.

The suit names Gov. John Lynch, Health and Human Services Commissioner Nicholas Toumpas and other administrators at the Department of Health and Human Services.

“The state itself undertook a process to improve the system. The recession has meant that change has not gone as quickly as the state would have liked, but progress has still been made — including new community-based teams and the closing of units at New Hampshire Hospital so that we can further invest in community-based housing,” said Lynch press secretary Colin Manning. “We will defer to the Attorney General's Office on the actual lawsuit, but the state remains committed to continuing to make progress for people with mental illnesses.”

Associate Attorney General Anne Edwards said her office is in the process of reviewing and analyzing the suit. “We will be defending the state,” she said.

Steve Schwartz of the Center for Public Representation said negotiations between the state Department of Health and Human Services, and advocacy groups broke down and as result the lawsuit was filed.

He said similar negotiations with Delaware and Georgia resulted in agreements, but New Hampshire chose to spend the next few years in federal court with no control over the outcome.

Messer said recent budget cuts have contributed to the cuts to community mental health centers. “The budget is not (the only) problem, it is how the state spends the money it has,” Messer said.

Roland Lamy, Executive Director of the New Hampshire Community Behavioral Health Association, which represents the 10 mental health centers, said the state's 10-year plan was issued three-and-a-half years ago, saying the system was in crisis.

“While some small progress may have been made since then, millions of state and federal dollars have been cut from the system, enrollment has increased, access to community and inpatient beds has decreased, and the day-to-day state of the system remains in crisis,” Lamy said.