kacl.ca

People with disabilities  along with their families, friends and support systems,  recently received some long overdue and welcome news:  the three  remaining Ontario institutions housing persons with intellectual disabilities will close forever on  March 31, 2009.   Since that announcement, the Southwest Regional Center near Chatham closed its doors October 30, 2008, having supported all its residents to move to homes in the community. It would be hard to find anyone involved  in the Community Living movement today who would disagree with such an important and momentous decision. Indeed, plans are afoot at Community Living Ontario  for a celebration to mark this triumph of humanity over pragmatism.  After years of advocating, planning and just plain hard work, victory for self-determination has won out.    Or has it?

At a recent  Northwest Regional ACL meeting , a remark was made which sounded an alarm with me.  During a discussion on Community Capacity, it was  suggested that  moving a “high-needs” individual in  with a difficult-to-serve  person somewhere else would  not only combine supports but save money.  This  comment elicited no reaction from anyone, including the two Ministry officials present.

Why  does this concern me?  Well, imagine if you will a group of people a hundred years or so ago, sitting around brainstorming  on how best to care for  people with intellectual disabilities.   I’m willing to bet someone came up with  a very similar suggestion, all in the name of efficiency and economy.  And  from that idea sprang institutions,   the very  institutions we are still in the process of dismantling.

Should we be unduly worried by  what may have been but a passing remark?  Perhaps not.  But I do believe we need to be vigilant.   In these times of economic downturns and of Governments desperately trying to cut costs, we need to be  alert to signs of  the swinging back of the pendulum.  Institutionalization did not spring up overnight. It developed  because people allowed the rights of individuals, one by one, to be superceded by supposed benefits to society at large.  

Community Living is an ideal whose time has finally arrived,  but only after  years of  effort and struggle.   It is up to all of us to safeguard and preserve it.

Anita Rasmussen, President, Kenora Association for Community iving