Housing for Kate: Update

Remember my post where I had just come back from a DDD meeting, full of trepidation at the bleak housing prospects for my daughter's future? I've had some conversations since then and she and I are feeling much better.

During one of the Art Club sessions, I was speaking to the ARC staff members and I brought up what I had heard at the DDD meeting. They looked at me funny and named 8 people off the top of their heads that had gotten housing since September, and their parents were still alive! You may recall that I heard that placement usually did not occur until the care giver had died and then it was an emergency and housing choices would be less that desirable. I also spoke with someone at an agency that is helping Kate get a job who seemed very knowledgable and pretty much said the same thing. She suggested calling DDD and speaking to Kate's case manager to find out what her place is on the waiting list and generally making ourselves known. This takes such a weight off of us. I don't understand why they made the situation sound so dire at that meeting.

In other news. I am just trying to get ready for my class, Mixed Media Textile Surfaces, which is this weekend! I'm leaving at the crack of dawn on Saturday morning. I think it is about a 2-hour drive, the class starts at 9 am. I will live there for 3 days, just learning and sewing and making art. I've been going over the materials list and trying to figure out what is best to bring. The fabric is where the decision-making is. The instructor recommends bringing certain types of fabric, but there is a lot in my stash beyond that. Should I just bring it all? What if I suddenly want something that I know I have... back home? Improvise, I suppose. I am going to bring my laptop along. Maybe it will be possible to post from there.

You Are Beautiful

I just wanted you to know that.

I took this picture on a trip to Philadelphia a few years ago. It was just hanging on a chain link fence.

I'm feeling good because I have the night off. I just don't have any place to be, no place to drive Kate to. Normally Kate has social group, but if there is a fifth week in the month, we take off.

Last night we went to a big public meeting put on by the DDD. In New Jersey that means Department of Developmental Disabilities. I was told to enroll Kate with this agency as soon as she turned 18 so that she could get on the waiting list for housing. Generally I have no contact with our case worker, because either we don't qualify for or don't need any of their services. I figured we would go to this meeting because they were announcing "major changes" to DDD. Our main interest is housing. Kate is nervous about this, even though I assured her that it is at least 20 years until anything is likely to happen. After attending this meeting I think it is more like 50 years.

Here is the way I understand it: When the parents of a client turn 55, the client moves to the PRIORITY list. The list is currently 4600 people long, and they place about 25 people per year. Think about that. At the end of the meeting, people lined up to ask questions. One woman got up, all crazy and emotional, and asked if it was true what she had heard. She heard that many people are not placed until their parents die, and of course, at that point, it's a crisis. The clients end up being placed in a developmental center, (an institution) and there are criminals mixed in to the population. The speaker assured her that there are not criminals mixed in the population. One of the centers has a criminal building, but they are by themselves. He did, however, admit that the rest of it was TRUE. That's just great. I have to make sure that I don't die until I am at least 90.

I need to investigate the alternatives. There must be some way to go in on a condo with a couple of other families and then have the state provide someone to supervise. Then, when everyone has passed on, the State inherits the property. I think I may have heard of something like that. I wish I had more money.