Apologies to my blog readers for disappearing. WordPress and I had a difference of opinion on who is doing this. Been too busy to work it out.

Work on emergency planning for Chapelwood United Methodist Church has been top on agenda with a Ferno sales rep coming today to demonstrate an evacuation chair that might let us get our persons with disabilities out of harms way in case of any kind of emergency. It’s amazing the number of appliances out there that help people to safety. Our priority is safety for both the person being transported down stairs and for the persons who are doing the transporting. I may be the guinea pig this afternoon as I transfer to one of the chairs. The planning committee is made up of people who are experts in their fields who have worked diligently to put an emergency plan together. I have learned a lot from them, and will now need to amend the Circle of Friends emergency procedures.

Our new service opportunity for teens begins in September, and we are in the process of organizing information and meeting with volunteers to work out safety practices and schedules that will be not only fun but productive.  The group will be small, but we expect it to grow as do all our programs that are based on need. The program will serve high school graduates who have no transition program or place to go due to state cut backs in funding.

There is no voice loud enough to yell at the State of Texas budget cuts to the disabled and elderly. You can’t yell at the cuts. You have to yell at people, but they are deaf. Care givers of persons with special needs and older persons have yelled, they have called, written, faxed, demonstrated to absolutely deaf ears and blind eyes. When nursing homes are closed along with group homes and the closure of two state institutions mandated by the Justice Department puts persons with disabilities on the streets, someone might notice. It will not be our state representatives or the governor. They are in their cool offices drinking Starbucks coffee. It will be the general public saying, “Why didn’t someone tell me?”

We are telling you now. It is heartless, shameful and wrong to take away the foundations and futures of all these people and their parents. Yes, I am angry. Because I hear and see the terror of parents and loved ones who have had the rug pulled out from under them. Their safety net is gone.

The economic impact will also be felt across the state. Intellectually disabled persons who have no place to spend their days in work and transitional programs must stay home with a caregiver who will have to quit a job to be there. These are the caregivers who work to save a nest egg for the aging years of their loved one. In another area, thousands of workers will be laid off from care, work and nursing centers. We are about to see a huge drain on the government for unemployment. Has this been figured in by those in Austin? I doubt it.

If you haven’t faxed or called your representative, now is the last minute. This is definitely a rainy day.