Aaron Lewis has been waiting three years for Community Living B.C. to help him find a place to live.
“We were told…CLBC has no contingency for anyone who is stable. So there is no forward budgeting for any adult who is not in crisis,” said mother Jean Lewis.
CLBC is the crown corporation that is supposed to help families who need placements for their developmentally disabled adult children, specifically anyone with an IQ under 70. Critics say they don’t.
“People and families are not funded until it’s absolutely falling apart,” said Faith Bodnar of Inclusion B.C. “In a sense, it’s a system that doesn’t fund until things are in crisis.”
Rae Schan’s 14-year-old autistic son is recovering in BC Children’s Hospital. She desperately wants a long-term plan for his care, but says kids who grow into adults with disabilities often get lost in the system.
“A lot of autistic parents live in silence because they don’t know what to do or they have nowhere to go, no resources or proper doctors to help,” said Schan.
CLBC doesn’t keep a wait list of how many people need help. But late Wednesday afternoon they did say they serve almost 18,000 adults, 2,600 are currently waiting for help, and 350 families have been waiting for homes for longer than six months.
Inclusion B.C. doubts those numbers.
“I know that Ontario published a wait list for adults with developmental disabilities and they were at about 21,000. As the third-largest largest province in the country, let’s say ours is somewhere anywhere between 10,000 to 15,000,” she estimated.
“I was talking to one of my son’s therapists…who works with another family and they were called today from CLBC to be told there is no budget for any more residential accommodation at all,” said Lewis.
She says she will keep advocating for her son. But she, and dozens of other parents say, something has to change.
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