“In an instant I understood part of the error. I had held the building to blame. I had tried the walls, the paint, the bed, the chairs and found them guilty. I realized that the building could commit no crime, hold no prisoner, perpetrate no abuse nor abet no rapist. Walls are just walls. Paint, even fluff covered in your pocket too long mint green, was just paint. Maybe we made a mistake thinking that the problem was the building. Maybe the problem was the attitude that built the building. Maybe if we change the building but not the attitude we do nothing. Maybe we considered the building constructed of brick and mortar rather than fear and hostility.”

— Dave Hingsburger, at the point when he finally began to realize that institutions aren’t created by the building, and that if you move someone to a “home” in the community with the same power structures and attitudes as in a more traditional institution, then they’re… still just as institutionalized as they were in the large institution.