Guest blogger Cathy Asselin asks what "community" really means

Friday morning I watched Alberta Human Services manager Dave Hancock take his best shot at doing damage control on Global TV’s Morning News regarding the Redford government cuts to services for people with disabilities. He talked about how cutting $42 million from the funding for persons with developmental disabilities (PDD) would benefit program users by giving them more opportunities to be part of the “community”. As often as he used the word, I’m not sure Mr. Hancock understands what “community” means.

Community is when you sit with your physically disabled neighbors and listen to three representatives from Alberta Health Services tell you that the block funding for your support services program has been eliminated in favour of a cookie-cutter, zone designed, profit-driven, privatized, service delivery system. I Googled the name of the agency we were told would take over our care by the end of July. I looked at a site called “Rate Your Employer – Revera”. It was not pleasant reading.

I live in the Abby Road Housing Cooperative. It is truly a community in that it is a cooperative whose members are responsible for the running and upkeep of the building as well as the co-op bylaws; has an age range of residents from elementary school to early 90s; able and disabled members. Of the 50 apartments in the building, 23 are adapted for people with physical disabilities. I am one of them.

Abby Road was the brainchild of six physically disabled individuals whose creativity, ingenuity, hard work and perseverance imagined a home that would support their independence. They instituted a support services program for the disabled residents in the co-op so that they received the assistance they needed to live full lives whether they went to school, had jobs or volunteered in the community. Such a place was a first in Alberta and Canada. It has existed since 1988.

Over the past 25 years, Abby Road’s successful model led to the creation of two other similar projects in Edmonton:  Art Space Co-Op and Creekside Condominiums. These two communities also had their support services programs eliminated this week.

Allison Redford has asked that we “trust” her government’s wholesale cuts. Trust is when you are at your most vulnerable and another person takes on the sensitive work of helping you accomplish the most intimate details of your personal care. Caregivers, who have worked with us for years, believe in the value of what they do every day and we value them.

With Abby Road, Art Space and Creekside, the Redford government has an opportunity to build on a successful, well-established concept for delivering services to those who are physically challenged as well as support their caregivers. Premier Redford should try trusting us.

Cathy Asselin

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT A PETITION AGAINST HOME CARE CUTS!

SHARE YOUR HOME CARE STORY HERE!

Shadows or the horrid past from GUEST BLOGGER Dr. Heidi Janz

What a Deranged Man with a Knife Didn’t Do, Alison Redford’s Government May Just Accomplish

Heidi Janz, PhD

Five years ago, a man entered my apartment, demanded money, and began choking and stabbing me. He later, reportedly, told police that he had raised his knife to stab me in the chest, but  a bright light appeared out of nowhere, scaring him so much that he stopped and fled.

Five years later, my existence is once again being threatened. But, this time, the threat isn’t coming from a deranged knife-wielding man; it’s coming from a provincial government that, I thought, was sworn to uphold my human rights. And I am becoming increasingly convinced that, once again, nothing short of Divine intervention will save my life, as I know it,

I live in Creekside Condominiums, and have my Homecare service provided by Creekside Support Services (CSS), a user-run cooperative for residents of Creekside who  require homecare. With the support that CSS has been able to provide over the past 16 years, our members have been able to go to school, work, volunteer in the community and are participating fully in society. In my case, the flexible support that CSS has provided me has made it possible for me to work as a Professor at the University of Alberta, travel to speak at conferences, etc. The demise of CSS will in effect herald the end of my active career. This is my ultimate reward for a lifetime of striving to be a contributing member of society.

The unilateral decision of AHS to force all Albertans needing Homecare to entrust themselves to multi-national, for-profit service providers amounts to a willful negation of more than 3 decades of struggle by Albertans with disabilities for full inclusion in society. We are totally frustrated by the lack of consultation by Alberta Health Services and their failure to even let us know that this move was contemplated.  Through the implementation of this policy, AHS will remove the flexible  model of service delivery that has enabled us to participate in society.  We will again become isolated. Furthermore, we will no longer have any real say in how, when, or by whom our essential personal  care services will be provided. This  poses a very real danger to our safety.

In fact, my 89-year-old father is so worried about my safety  once my current caregivers are forced to leave that he is making plans to move into my condo to help care for and protect me.

My parents grew up in Germany under Adolf Hitler. I grew up listening to their harrowing storie of human rights evaporating as strangers barged into their homes at will and informed them of what they were to do. My parents also talked about people who had (or were thought to have) disabilities randomly disappearing from their villages.

These days, to my disbelief and horror, I find myself relating to these stories in ways that I never have before.

Is this really the kind of province that Albertans want to live in?  For all our sakes, I pray not.

PLEASE CLICK HERE TO SIGN THE HOME CARE PETITION

GOT A HOME CARE STORY? PLEASE CLICK HERE!