Economy Devastates People with Disabilities

As I and the Salem Commission on Disabilities have feared, the economy has been disastrous for people with disabilities.

The day program for people with mental illness at 50 Grove St., Branwen, and its associated Employment Resource Network for employment of people with mental illness is being closed by the state:

The state closed both Branwen, the day program, and the Employment Resource Network, which works with clients 16 and older. They were funded by the state Department of Mental Health.

The news hit the clients hard.

"When they told us we were closing, the whole room fell silent and people started crying," said Mary Chadwick, 60, of Peabody, who has been going to Branwen for three years.

Chadwick, who spent five years in a mental hospital, said the Salem-based programs helped get her back on her feet, land a part-time job and feel good about herself for the first time in years.

"It saved my life," she said. "I had no life when I went there, and the two of them (Branwen Director Ron Brown and Assistant Director Sue Guptill) saved my life because I was dead. ... I was dead inside, completely numb, and slowly they brought me back to life."

This is disastrous.  I have been a member of another mental health clubhouse (not Branwen) and a one-time client of Health and Education Services, the state’s only resource for outpatient mental health care.  I can only dimly imagine how bad this must be.  For years from the Weld administration onward to the present, HES has had its resources cut to the point where many people with mental illness and low income are either waiting for help or they are outright denied.

These are the “other people” who talk to themselves, that the rest of us are uncomfortable with.   If they’re not helped here, then what?  They can’t go anywhere.  Pull themselves up by their bootstraps?!  Please.

Do people still think Deval would undo the cuts once Question One was defeated?  I didn’t think so.  [Update:  The Boston Globe wrote an editorial.]

It isn’t only people in Massachusetts with disabilities who are affected by the economy;  it is nationwide.  US News and World Report says (via Patricia E.  Bauer):

The recession's crunch on jobs, wallets, and egos is hitting one group of Americans—those with disabilities—particularly hard.

"People with disabilities tend to be the last hired and the first fired," says Rick Diamond, director of employment services at Disability Network/Lakeshore, a disability rights nonprofit based in Holland, Mich.

[…]

The disparity in employment between people with and without disabilities has already been growing. In 2007, according to last month's Disability Status Report, only 36.9 percent of working-age individuals with disabilities were employed. The year before, it was 37.7 percent. But the employment rate of people without disabilities, at 79.7 percent, didn't change.

37 percent!  63% of people with disabilities are unemployed!

It can only get worse.

First snow of the season, December 2008

Salem Snow December 2008 2008-12-07 001, originally uploaded by dmoisan.

First snow of the season, right on schedule for December 7th. Just a flurry, though we did get two inches.

Santa in Salem, 2008

Santa comes down from the roof of the Hawthorne once again this year.

And holds court at Museum Place.

Salem Commission on Disabilities November 2008

The minutes of the November meeting of the Salem Commission on Disabilities are up on Salem.com.  Some highlights:

• Sidewalks are first last and always important to us.  I already blogged about several sidewalks around downtown. The moon crater at 10 Federal is still there.  [UPDATE:   10 Federal is fixed.  Thanks to Jason for the update.]
• The ATM at Sovereign Bank on Essex St. is not accessible to the handicapped.  It used to be accessed via a hallway to the rear of the building, which is accessible, but that hallway is now closed off.  We’ve been after this for a few months.
• Health and Education Services is proposing a group home at 39-1/2 Mason St.  They’re looking for a variance so they don’t have to put an elevator in the building;  this would be cost-prohibitive.  The variance application is on file with the MAAB.
• In other MAAB news, we’re still waiting to hear about MassHighway’s variance request on the Bypass Road bike path, blogged about back in June.  I wish MassHighway had taken care of this sooner.
• The word from David Tracht, recently retired from the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind, is grim.  The state cuts aren’t close to over, indeed they are likely just beginning.  He’s worried that the various state commissions for the disabled may get rolled into, say, the Massachusetts Rehabiliation Commission,  losing a lot of specialized knowledge in the process.  Already low vision resources have been cut.  This blogger wishes he had used such resources before that happened.

I wish a good Thanksgiving to all disabled people and their friends and relations, and may they have a quiet uneventful day with their loved ones.

Mayor, Commuters Support New Salem Depot

The Salem News follows up on yesterday’s petition drive at Salem Depot.  Mayor Driscoll expands on one detail of the project I found interesting:

The mayor has formed a committee to explore a possible public-private partnership and to try to push Salem to the head of the long line of communities hoping for more train parking.

Plans for a new station have changed slightly, the mayor said late yesterday. Officials are now looking at a smaller building that would cost less to build but still provide close to the 1,000 spaces Salem officials want. [emphasis added]  It would be built on a site that would not include city property, the mayor said.

I don’t much care about the specific number of parking spaces, indeed I don’t drive at all so I would not care, except for the great need that the courthouse already poses (for the past 20 years, not just the new facility.)

But I want to see a sheltered platform.  And food service and convenience stores as you find at North Station and Government Center.  Handicapped access that isn’t a rotting ramp.  And the end of those f---ing stairs! 

I want our train station something that’s done right, a rare government project that makes Salem better than it was before it.  A facility that commuters and visitors to our city can be proud of.

We may have budget concerns but we must not compromise on that idea.  We’ve done that too often in the past.

From the comments in the Salem News, it’s apparent that in our cynical state, we can’t or don’t dare to even see that little distance ahead.  To borrow from Deval Patrick, “Together We Can’t.”

Salem Depot Gets Signatures

Salem Depot, long written and complained about in this blog, continues to get attention.  The Salem Partnership had petitioners out to get signatures in support of a new garage at Salem Depot.

Once again, the Salem News comes out to support the project:

If you read this while waiting for the train in Salem Monday morning, you likely encountered the mayor or others bearing petitions seeking support for a new waiting area and garage.

If you read this while waiting for the train, you were also likely freezing. With the wind whipping off the North River, Rep. John Keenan describes the train platform at the Salem depot as "probably the coldest place in North America."

That's a slight exaggeration, of course. But there's no question commuters deserve a more comfortable place in which to wait the arrival of the MBTA's commuter trains than the concrete slab and Plexiglas shelters which serve that purpose now.

Mayor Kim Driscoll, says it's either now or a long time from now for construction of a new parking facility and waiting area at the train station.

We’ve had the current Salem Depot for 21 years.  Early on, there was a very obvious parking shortage.  A few years after, the stairs started coming apart.  I’ve said before, I hate them.

I fully expect, if not for the courthouse project—which has already put demand on parking downtown—that we could wait another 20 years, if ever, for a new station.

I wonder if the NIMBYs will still be here at that time?

The lot’s almost full and it was just 7:30.

Broken Sidewalks Report for November 2008

Part, I meant all, of our work for the Salem Commission on Disabilities involves sidewalks.  Broken sidewalks are at very best annoying.  At worst, they can hurt.

Outside St. Peter’s Church, St. Peter’s St:

The DPW cone implies that Salem DPW knows about this one already.  Charlie Reardon brought it up at the disability meeting the day before.  [UPDATE:  This is fixed with hot-top.  Presumably it’ll be fixed permanently in the spring.]

100 feet up St. Peter St., in front of St. John’s Rectory:

 

The bump in the sidewalk perhaps caused by the tree root, has dislodged these bricks.

At the Salem District Court parking lot outside Federal St.:

Loose bricks are very dangerous, particularly in the winter.   They can be dislodged by shovels or worse, “eaten” by snowblowers that can hurl them out of their chutes to hit a car or a person.  And in late November, we are on borrowed time for winter.

I’ve sent these pix to Jason Silva.  [Update.  The brickwork outside St. Peter’s Church is in the process of being fixed.]