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
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