Seniors Housing Costs 4 Times Aging At Home

PEI continues inhumane and expensive policy of warehousing disabled seniors in manors

Despite the high cost and the wishes of seniors with disabilities, PEI continues to waste money and depress them in warehoused living conditions.

According to a US advocacy publication “The Mouth”, in 1995 1.9 million Americans with disabilities were housed at a cost of $40,000 per year each when they could be kept in their own homes for $10,000 per year.

“Numerous studies have shown that living at home, in a home or apartment, is better psychologically, more fulfilling, and cheaper than living in nursing homes.” Nothing About Us Without Us: Disability Oppression and Empowerment

The disabled don’t want to be segregated and warehoused away from the rest of society.

A retired Federal civil servant who recently moved into seniors housing reported it was depressing. “All the people are 20 years older than me and depressed,” he said. “I am used to being around children in my neighborhood and families. I like to work in my workshop but here there is nothing but 4 walls.”

Despite living with a disability for almost all of his life, he raised a family, had a home and a good job with the government. As he ages his disability made walking up and down stairs difficult. The only solution was seniors housing and he doesn’t like it at all. Why would anyone want to be warehoused and segregated.

Fifty years ago only the rich sent their elderly parents to senior’s homes.  With some assistance like home care and respite for relatives and caregivers, the disabled can stay in their own homes, happier and at a lower cost to the taxpayer.

All of my grandparents died at home as did my father. My grandmothers were both disabled. They lived their last years among their family. My mother had two strokes and one heart attack. The first thing people started telling her was to go to a manor. She will be 90 in a month and lives in her own apartment with the help of friends, relatives and social supports. That is not a rare occurrence.

Waste of money keeps the care-giving industry happy

The government is spending more than $50 million to replace PEI’s manors but they cannot build enough for the growing population of aging persons with disabilities. This month the Treasurer admitted the interest charges are now equivalent to what is being spent on Social Services and Seniors. We will soon have no choice but to find a better and lower cost way of accommodating the aging with disabilities.

What is the reason we have so many people in warehoused conditions? Sadly, the care and housing of the aging with disabilities is big business. The private manor business is lucrative. The owners contribute to political parties to make sure the warehousing policies continue.

Olive Crane, leader of the Opposition, and CUPE arguing for more public control of manors

Government unions, bureaucrats and politicians derive their incomes from the current expensive and inhumane policies. Who cares on PEI? The money comes from Ottawa right? If the government even hints it is changing the status quo the unions will bleat loudly about their jobs.

Manor concept slammed read the headline in the Guardian. The Unions and the Opposition are fighting against privatization of senior’s manors. Of course they are. Government jobs pay double what manor workers make in the private warehouses.

The government tries to off-load its costs to home-care workers at $10 an hour. CUPE members, bureaucrats and private manor employees make 1,000 times more than the family caregivers who toil day and night with no compensation.

Instead of promoting the cost of caring for the aging with disabilities, the government needs to come up with reasonable alternatives to keeping them in their own homes at lower cost.