Speaking up: 2010 group home cuts
July 2010: CLBC's budget challenges have created extreme pressures on operators to close group homes, with alarming reports of long-time residents either being forcibly moved or pressured to give up their homes and move into less costly home-sharing arrangements.
Home sharing works very well for some individuals, but is not safe or appropriate for everyone. MOMS is joining other community leaders in calling on CLBC and Minister Rich Coleman to take immediate action to halt these moves and closures and ensure that all placement decisions are made with the welfare and safety of the individual as the paramount consideration, and with families fully involved in all decisions.
We invite concerned individuals, families and providers to share news and updates with MOMS for sharing with the broader community via this page. Please use the Comments section below to offer suggestions and/or to connect with others to support joint advocacy initiatives.
UPDATE Aug. 13:
We continue to receive extremely disturbing reports from families, staff, agencies and other community advocacy groups about what's being described as a "vicious" and "clandestine" cost-cutting push to close group homes and relocate current residents to less costly, informal living arrangements.
Three particularly disturbing aspects have emerged: 1) There appears to be great urgency on CLBC's part to accomplish as many moves and closures as possible over the summer months before families and the public even realize what's going on; 2) CLBC is ordering service reductions with far-reaching implications based on a draft policy that has not even been formally approved or announced, raising questions about potential legal challenges; and 3) MCFD has a similar cost-cutting process underway to close children's group homes and relocate youths with very complex needs to foster care. Read more
See also a report revealing the children's closures from the Victoria Times Colonist: Ministry closing children in care homes
Sign the petition to Stop Group Home Cuts!
Please sign and circulate widely the link to our online petition: http://www.petitiononline.com/home2010/
Background
There has been constant and often intense pressure to close professionally-staffed group homes for adults with developmental disabilities and reduce the role of unionized care arrangements since 2001. Read more
Resources
Representation Agreement
A Representation Agreement can empower parents/relatives to act on behalf of an individual. It is very easy and worthwhile thing to do and only costs $50.00 to register. CLBC cannot exclude an authorized representative from any meeting or decision concerning the individual.
Find more information on Representation Agreements here
CLBC Complaints policy
Anyone can challenge a CLBC decision by filing a formal complaint. CLBC is required to respond, although this may or may not result in satisfactory resolution. CLBC's Complaints Resolution Policy includes links to external processes where you can appeal if your concerns remain unresolved. and how to file a formal complaint if you disagree with a CLBC decision can be found here.
Find Complaints forms, Fact Sheets in multiple languages and links to other CLBC policies here.
Take Action
Letters/Statements
- Letter from the Opposition Critic for Community Living, Shane Simpson to Minister Rich Coleman re group home closures. Read the letter here
- Letter from Nicholas Simons, MLA for Powell River/ Sunshine Coast to Minister Rich Coleman re group home closures: Read the letter here.
Advocacy Tools
One concerned Dad produced this moving U-Tube video to share his concerns:
What you can do
- Contact Minister Coleman at HSD.Minister@gov.bc.ca and/or your MLA to express your concerns: Find your MLA
- Sign our online petition
News reports
Victoria Times Colonist: Ministry closing children in care homes
Lindsay Kines, Times Colonist
August 8, 2010
The B.C. government is closing a number of staffed homes for children in care even before it completes a provincewide review of such programs, documents show.
The Ministry of Children and Family Development has served notice that it expects to sign a contract with a large agency in Kamloops to "wind down" the majority of its one- and two-bed homes that are staffed 24 hours a day.
As part of the deal, Axis Family Resources Ltd. will arrange for some of the children to live with a foster parent while receiving additional supports for their behavioural or mental-health problems. The foster parents also will receive extra help, such as respite care so they can take a break once in a while from their work as caregivers.
Older youth, meanwhile, will be able to live independently with supports, such as regular visits by a youth worker who will help teach life skills.
The ministry said it expects to save up to $450,000 by closing the more expensive staffed homes run by Axis and switching to less-expensive housing models, according to the B.C. Bid website. Over a period of four to five months, Axis will close eight staffed homes with a total of 10 beds. Read more
Victoria Times Colonist: Families fear worst as group homes cut
July 30, 2010
Jody Paterson, Times Colonist
I met with three families recently who are frightened by rumours they're hearing about the group homes where some of their family members live. They're not alone.
Back when B.C. was closing the big institutions like Woodlands and Glendale in the 1980s and 1990s, group homes housing four to six people were touted as the way of the future for people with severe mental handicaps -- and money-savers to boot.
But that was then. Now, the government is looking for more savings. The group homes that families believed would always be there have become the focus for budget cuts at Community Living B.C., the five-year-old Crown agency charged with overseeing housing and support services for adults with developmental disabilities. Read more
Powell River Peak News: Potential group home closure raises ire
July 21. 2010
By Kyle Wells
Families of four residents with disabilities living in a group home in Powell River are upset with what they feel to be pressure from Community Living BC (CLBC) to move their loved ones into a different, and they believe unacceptable, housing situation.
Four men with developmental disabilities living in a group home on Joyce Avenue have undergone CLBC assessments without parental input. Some have been moved already against the wishes of family and now all are being told that they may have to move again, this time to a different and unanimously unwanted situation.
Peter Cossarin, Ed Danyluk, Bill Tunstall and Tim Yates all live at the group home on Joyce and all require living assistance due to developmental disabilities. Tunstall, 36, Cossarin, 40, and Yates, 51, have Down’s Syndrome and Danyluk, 46, was born with phenylketonuria, a genetic disorder that can lead to brain damage. Read more
Victoria Times Colonist: BC disabled being uprooted, care reduced
BC Goverment agency accused of duping public about group homes
Lindsay Kines, Times Colonist
June 25, 2010
The B.C. government is misleading the public about its move to cut costs by closing group homes for the developmentally disabled, say families and caregivers.
The relatives accuse Community Living B.C. of pressuring local agencies to shutter facilities that are staffed 24 hours a day, and push people into less-expensive living arrangements, such as home-sharing with a caregiver.
The families say they are given little notice or chance to appeal the decisions. Instead, local companies and non-profit associations are telling them the closures are necessary because Community Living B.C. has slashed their budgets. Read more
Victoria Times Colonist: Group home cuts grim news for disabled
Jody Paterson, Times Colonist
June 11, 2010
I remember the exact moment I started to look at people with mental handicaps in a completely different way.
It was 1985, not long after the province had closed the huge institution for "retarded" people at Tranquille, an old tuberculosis sanatorium outside Kamloops. I was working at a Kamloops newspaper at the time and the closure was big news, so I'd been part of documenting the hope, fear, anger and anticipation that the closure had sparked.
Families had been working for lifetimes by then to move things forward for their mentally handicapped children, who were all ages. They had few choices in those years when it came to finding services or schooling for their children in their own hometowns, and often had no option but to send their children hundreds of kilometres away to institutions such as Tranquille, Woodlands and Glendale.
The families were mostly over the moon at the thought that Tranquille's closure would allow them to bring their children home to get all the support they needed in their own communities, which is what the government was promising. Read more
Victoria Times Colonist: Cuts could close group homes
Advocates say government agency hopes to save $22 million this year
Lindsay Kines, Times Colonist
June 6, 2010
A B.C. government agency that provides services to the developmentally disabled is looking to save at least $22 million this year -- much of it by closing group homes, advocates for the disabled say.
Community Living B.C. said yesterday there is no fixed target, but acknowledged that it's searching for money that can be used to reduce waitlists.
"CLBC is not cutting any funding -- we're looking for better ways to deliver services while ensuring that individuals receive the right supports to meet their needs," spokeswoman Kate Chandler said in an e-mail.
But advocates say they've been told the agency hopes to find more than $22 million -- including $3 million in the Greater Victoria region. Much of the savings will come from a "service redesign" that involves closing group homes, which are staffed on a 24-hour basis. Read more
August 13th, 2010 - 12:27
group homes are a valuable asset to our community and must remain open at all costs