This article has been imported from our web archive. As a result, it may contain formatting errors, broken links or images, or other inconsistencies from the original publication.
Forced independent living may kill independence
By Dorothy Cummings McLean
November 21, 2008
Dorothy Cummings McLean
Once I worked for the Ontario Ministry of Community and Social Services, the government body that has repeatedly refused requests from The Catholic Register to comment on the question of homelessness and deinstitutionalization.
One of my tasks was to give monthly support cheques to clients so unstable that they rarely had a fixed address or a bank account. Three clients come to mind: one man who was boisterous and cheerful when he was on his meds and frightening when he was not; one crack addict whose stained and burnt hands shook as he took his cheque; and one pleasant woman who joked with the police officer standing behind me.
“She’s looking a lot better,” said the officer when she left. “She’s a crack whore, you know.”
I didn’t know, and I didn’t need to know. Frankly, I don’t think I needed the police officer there at all. We women at the front counter were adept at calming mentally ill clients. Those who needed police protection were the mentally ill clients. Off they went with their cheques to enrich Money Mart and then sometimes be waylaid by their drug-selling “friends” at the corner. Their workers, all with huge case loads, did their best for the clients, but they couldn’t go home with them, scare off the predators, make sure their cheques paid the electricity and rent, or cook them nutritious meals.
One of the happiest meals I have ever had was at the L’Arche Daybreak community in Richmond Hill. My friend Liska Stefko, a L’Arche chaplaincy assistant, invited me to their Corner House. I was a little nervous. Developmentally disabled kids streamed into my elementary school were sometimes bullied and made the butt of jokes. Having an intellectual disability seemed to me the greatest tragedy possible. However, once I found myself inside Corner House, I was almost overwhelmed by the love that filled the rooms.
I remember a feisty, friendly woman with Down Syndrome; a tiny, energetic but speechless woman who crept or crawled along the floor; and a silent large-eyed girl who could barely move but watched all her friends from her mobile bed. I remember too the assistants, community members with no discernible disabilities, and how everyone ministered to everyone else: cooking, laying the table, joking, dancing. Even the immobile girl contributed. The joy that flashed into her dark eyes was contagious. She could not eat by mouth, but she sat at the table with everyone else and was addressed in the general conversation.
I was shocked when I read in The Catholic Register of “The Services and Supports to Promote the Social Inclusion of Persons with Developmental Disabilities Act.” It appears that this law is aimed at getting people with developmental disabilities out of communities like L’Arche into apartments of their own. The buzzwords are “independence, dignity and self-reliance.” Someone please explain to me how being forced out of a loving community into an empty single-tenant apartment fosters independence, dignity and self-reliance. It hasn’t worked out that well for the mentally ill.
Personally, I loathe living on my own. I lived on my own for years, and I got mightily sick of it. Even with housemates, one can be alone. For my two years at Boston College, I shared a huge, draughty apartment with two bachelors who cooked separately and ate in their rooms. When I took leave and went home, I almost clung to my parents’ ankles. Finally, finally, finally, I didn’t have to live alone any more. Finally, I was in a real community again.
I know it is almost a crime to say this, but I am not an independent, self-reliant woman. I am an interdependent woman, which is to say that I depend on others for my flourishing as a human being, just as others depend on me for theirs. L’Arche models this interdependence, for everyone at L’Arche depends on everyone else. Serving people with special needs gives meaning and joy to the L’Arche assistants. Living with the L’Arche assistants gives people with special needs a real home and a loving community.
The adult child who lives in his or her parents’ home is the butt of jokes. We are thought not to have dignity. But surely Canadians have noticed that in most cultures it is traditional for unmarried men and women to live in their parents’ home. Traditional parents often think it insane for their unmarried children to throw away money on a rented apartment when they could simply live at home and contribute to their family, at least through chores, child care and fellowship. The older I get, the more I sympathize with traditional parents. There is nothing undignified about living in, serving and being served by a loving family or community.
So I am left with a question. If I, who have advanced university degrees and a myriad of intellectual interests, dread the loneliness of “independent living,” what will “independent living” mean to the kind of adults who flourish, not by intellectual gifts, but through the heart alone?
“She’s looking a lot better,” said the officer when she left. “She’s a crack whore, you know.”
I didn’t know, and I didn’t need to know. Frankly, I don’t think I needed the police officer there at all. We women at the front counter were adept at calming mentally ill clients. Those who needed police protection were the mentally ill clients. Off they went with their cheques to enrich Money Mart and then sometimes be waylaid by their drug-selling “friends” at the corner. Their workers, all with huge case loads, did their best for the clients, but they couldn’t go home with them, scare off the predators, make sure their cheques paid the electricity and rent, or cook them nutritious meals.
One of the happiest meals I have ever had was at the L’Arche Daybreak community in Richmond Hill. My friend Liska Stefko, a L’Arche chaplaincy assistant, invited me to their Corner House. I was a little nervous. Developmentally disabled kids streamed into my elementary school were sometimes bullied and made the butt of jokes. Having an intellectual disability seemed to me the greatest tragedy possible. However, once I found myself inside Corner House, I was almost overwhelmed by the love that filled the rooms.
I remember a feisty, friendly woman with Down Syndrome; a tiny, energetic but speechless woman who crept or crawled along the floor; and a silent large-eyed girl who could barely move but watched all her friends from her mobile bed. I remember too the assistants, community members with no discernible disabilities, and how everyone ministered to everyone else: cooking, laying the table, joking, dancing. Even the immobile girl contributed. The joy that flashed into her dark eyes was contagious. She could not eat by mouth, but she sat at the table with everyone else and was addressed in the general conversation.
I was shocked when I read in The Catholic Register of “The Services and Supports to Promote the Social Inclusion of Persons with Developmental Disabilities Act.” It appears that this law is aimed at getting people with developmental disabilities out of communities like L’Arche into apartments of their own. The buzzwords are “independence, dignity and self-reliance.” Someone please explain to me how being forced out of a loving community into an empty single-tenant apartment fosters independence, dignity and self-reliance. It hasn’t worked out that well for the mentally ill.
Personally, I loathe living on my own. I lived on my own for years, and I got mightily sick of it. Even with housemates, one can be alone. For my two years at Boston College, I shared a huge, draughty apartment with two bachelors who cooked separately and ate in their rooms. When I took leave and went home, I almost clung to my parents’ ankles. Finally, finally, finally, I didn’t have to live alone any more. Finally, I was in a real community again.
I know it is almost a crime to say this, but I am not an independent, self-reliant woman. I am an interdependent woman, which is to say that I depend on others for my flourishing as a human being, just as others depend on me for theirs. L’Arche models this interdependence, for everyone at L’Arche depends on everyone else. Serving people with special needs gives meaning and joy to the L’Arche assistants. Living with the L’Arche assistants gives people with special needs a real home and a loving community.
The adult child who lives in his or her parents’ home is the butt of jokes. We are thought not to have dignity. But surely Canadians have noticed that in most cultures it is traditional for unmarried men and women to live in their parents’ home. Traditional parents often think it insane for their unmarried children to throw away money on a rented apartment when they could simply live at home and contribute to their family, at least through chores, child care and fellowship. The older I get, the more I sympathize with traditional parents. There is nothing undignified about living in, serving and being served by a loving family or community.
So I am left with a question. If I, who have advanced university degrees and a myriad of intellectual interests, dread the loneliness of “independent living,” what will “independent living” mean to the kind of adults who flourish, not by intellectual gifts, but through the heart alone?
Dorothy Cummings McLean