Adults fight back to save their homes
The Victoria Times Colonist has been covering a nasty fight taking shape as Community Living BC has been strongly pressuring agencies to close group homes in an effort to find more than $20 million in savings.
Agencies and group home residents are complaining about strong-arm bully tactics by CLBC, as developmentally disabled adults are forced out of their homes, and with officials then lying to the public to cover up what's happening.
Here is a link to a U-Tube video: Save Our Group Homes
And some recent news coverage:
Victoria Times Colonist: BC government agency accused of duping public about group homes
By Lindsay Kines, Times Colonist
June 25, 2010
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.
The government agency denies this, saying it's simply looking for better ways to deliver services. It says that it works with people who "volunteer" to move. "But we do not force people to make decisions before they are ready to make them," Community Living B.C. spokeswoman Kate Chandler said in a June 3 e-mail to the Times Colonist.
Those comments, however, have enraged family members whose siblings or children are being forced out of group homes where they lived for years.
The Times Colonist interviewed people with relatives at group homes in Victoria, Powell River and Maple Ridge who all say Community Living B.C. is duping the public.
"A lot of the comments that they've made, to me, are just outright lies," said Julie Achadinha of Victoria . Read more