News Reports – Community Living Cuts
Last updated: November 2010 - Please also see the BC CLAG website for more recent media reports on our Community Living campaign
Recent news
- Oct 10 - CKNW: Radio host Sean Leslie interviewed Andrew Latta, whose sister's funding was cut by 80%, NDP Critic Shane Simpson and Minister Coleman re concerns over group home cuts. Listen to a recording at this link. Fill in the date (Oct 10) and time (4 pm) to access the recording, then click "listen". The news, etc. will play before the Sean Leslie show begins.
- Oct 8 - Victoria Times Colonist: Columnist Jody Paterson argues that group home closings are "stupid and cruel." Read her column here
- Oct 4 - Vancouver Sun: Group homes provide lifeline for society's most vulnerable population - read more
- Oct 2 - South Asian Link: BC Liberals have quietly begun closing doors on care homes fo rthe disabled - read more
- Sep 30 - New Wesminster News Leader: Disabled woman forced to leave group home - read more
- Sep 29 - Powell River Peak: After a family outcry saved the Joyce Avenue group home from closure, CLBC ordered the Powell River Association for Community Living to cut staffing and access to life skills and days programs instead. Read the article
- Sep 29 - The Province: Victoria's budget axe forcing group homes to close: critics - read more
- Sep 29 - Coquitlam Now: Group home changes worry family - Opposition says BC Liberals plan to make $22 million worth of cuts - read more
- Sep 29 - Vancouver Sun: Cuts could force disabled out of group homes - woman with Down syndrome will be 'isolated,' brother fears - read more
- Sep 28 - Vancouver Sun: Doug Ward reports on concerns voiced by NDP and families about group home closures. Read the article
- Sep 28 - New Wesminster News Leader: Dawn Black says the Liberals went back on promise to people with disabilities - read more
- Sep 27 - CKNW: Funding Cuts to impact group homes:NDP - read the article
Archives
Public Eye Online: Group thinking
August 27, 2010
Special approval is now required for developmental disabled individuals to receive government-funding to live in a group home, Public Eye has learned. The directive is included in an internal draft policy Community Living British Columbia is using when determining new living arrangements for those individuals, as well as when existing arrangements come up for review.
Here's how it works: staff score a developmental disabled individual's needs on a scale of one to five - with one being the lowest level of need and five being the highest. Those who score between one to three qualify for anywhere from one to 21 hours per week of supported living assistance.
Like those with greater needs, those individuals could also quality to share a home with a support worker. But special approval from one of Community Living British Columbia's four regional operations directors is required for a developmentally disabled individual to qualify to live in a group home - where support is provided by a team that works in 24-hour shifts at the residence.
An accompanying document advises staff the policy is "not available to the public" but can be "shared" with the families of those with developmental disabilities, as well as service providers. Read more
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