Dear Editor:
My son Gregory Blagdon has attended the Harriston Day Program full time (five days a week) for 20 years; he is 43 years old.
Now with this closure coming next month, has anyone thought where are we going, we weren’t offered options or alternatives? The answer is, nowhere and we as parents are left with being creative.
Some will stay at home, parents will resign from their employment, while others leave their communities to private day programs and at a cost. Is no one wondering or even caring what is in their future days and weeks ahead ?
From productive days at the day program with friends and co-workers, it stops here, and no place to go but possibly sitting at home.
Stopping day programs are hiding our children, and that’s a shame; no one wants to be a recluse.
Multiple concerns of money from CLGW, but what about future costs for the parents?
Where is the money coming from for our children to attend Day Programs outside of our communities ?
Averaging $88 to $118 per day, sure enough there is ODSP and Passport funds but for my son to attend three days a week in a year it will cost a total of $17,000, with no money left for parent relief, extra program funding or day-to-day items. No one has been prepared for these costs, especially the aging parent who has retired.
Why should our children have less and be without their friends, to have a productive day, the feeling of self-worth, and being happy ?
We are families advocating for the rights of a place to go, not to have our children shut in our homes, to be invisible.
We are like refugees, now without a place to go, displaced, with no choices or options given. We didn’t ask for this conflict of monies and politics.
While our country helps others it is forgetting about the innocence of these individuals, and this is heartbreaking.
Greg Blagdon and Victoria Waltham-Kingsley,
Harriston