TORONTO — A billboard with the photo of a young woman, smiling for the camera in a silver dress, is in the eye-line of a Tim Horton’s drive-thru in Ingersoll, Ont.
“Have you seen me? Probably not! I live like a prisoner!” the billboard reads.
The young woman is 25-year-old Jasmine Phillips, who said she is stuck in an inaccessible home and can’t get out of her front door due to a steep set of concrete stairs.
“I want to do something,” said Jasmine. “I want to get out, I want to get my own food, I want to take care of myself.”
She said did all of those things when she lived on her own and went to college in Hamilton. She added that it didn’t matter then that she was deaf and in a wheelchair, she felt free, “like I have wings,” she said.
Jasmine let her place go last spring, with plans to go to university in Washington. But when funding feel through at the last minute, she was forced to move into her mother’s tiny, rural house, which is not accessible.
“She can’t get out the front door. She goes out if I take her, I have to carry her,” said Rona Phillips, Jasmine’s mother.
Phillips is gone 10 hours a day to work, and worries about emergencies that could put her daughter in danger, such as a fire.
She said due to the fact Jasmine is stuck inside alone day after day, she has lost her smile.
“Maybe in my whole life, maybe I’ve seen my daughter cry twice,” said Phillips, choking back tears. “Now it’s almost every day.”
She tried for months to get affordable accessible housing for Jasmine, adding that in September she was told by Oxford County Jasmine they would have a spot in a building being renovated in Woodstock.
However, the building is still under construction, no one can move in and they say Oxford County is not replying when they ask,
“What now?” said Phillips. “I’ve sent many emails telling them that we’re in crisis.”
Oxford County said they can’t talk about a specific case, even with permission from those involved.
The Director of Human Services Paul Beaton said the building is expected to be finished at the end of December, but there are 30 people on the wait list for affordable accessible housing.
Beaton said he was was unclear on what had been said to the Phillips.
“I’m not sure if promise is the word I would use. I think we said this would be available,” said Beaton.
When asked to clarify the difference, he responded, “I don’t know if it is an argument of semantics but those units will be available.”
He added that the decision of who gets the units is up to the landlord.
Although Beaton said the building would be ready at the end of the year, Global News spoke directly to the builder who said it will likely be completed around the end of February, possibly even early March.
Jasmine said the frustration is getting to her and she is tired of being closed off from the world.
“I feel like no one understands what I am going through,” she said.
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