A Closer Look: Jody Paterson

Say it ain't so! After all the heat and problems at CLBC, all the lost services to vulnerable people, we find out that fired (an important distinction - fired, not laid off or downsized or anything softer like that) CLBC chief Rick Mowles got a $345,000 severance package from the Crown corporation when he was axed last month . Yup, 18 months' severance after being on the job just six years. Wow. Kudos to TC reporter Lindsay Kines for digging up this important story - he's been an ace on the CLBC issues since the start, and was the only reporter in B.C. even doing any meaningful writing about this stuff until things got so noisy that Global TV and now the Vancouver Sun finally took a look.

All the problems and drama at Community Living B.C. these days got me digging through the story archives this week to try to see when it was that things started going wrong for the Crown corporation. I was prepared to be outraged. But really, I just felt sad. I’ve often made mention here of a 1978 book I was introduced to a few years ago, Poor People’s Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail. I’ve seen so many real-life examples of the cautionary tales laid out in that fascinating book through my work helping people with few resources push change. The heartbreaking story of CLBC just might be the clearest example yet. Poor People’s Movements documents the histories of four protest movements involving lower-class groups in the U.S. I’d read it in hopes of learning strategies for shaking things up around homelessness and sex-work issues, but happily discovered the book was even more valuable for understanding why good intentions so often go awry in the drive for change. ...

I'm sharing my blog space today with a Victoria man who is justifiably frustrated with the system in B.C. for people with developmental disabilities, and wonders why Premier Christy Clark's promises to put "families first" doesn't seem to apply to his family:  By Ian McInnes Families First, a political concept that resonates well if you have 2.3 children, are a member of the middle class and live in urban BC  In fact, it is rather easy to put Families First as a member of these strata of our society; you have the financial strength, community support, and educational opportunities to do just that.  And if you vote Liberal you not only get government support but receive a pat on the back from your premier saying “keep up the good work” we’ve got your back.  But if you have a family unit that includes a member with a developmental disability, it is impossible to put family first.  The reality is the family member with the disability comes first a...

I can feel for governments on issues like health spending, which has no top limit to its growth. As long as there are people desperate to stay alive and clever entrepreneurs eager to capitalize on that, no amount of money will ever be “enough.” So yes, let’s have a heart for the plight of government in trying to manage that challenging issue. But that’s no excuse for why they’re not better at managing other costs that are far more predictable year over year. The crazy stuff going on right now for people with developmental disabilities in B.C. is a fitting example. Yes, there are cost pressures on that front, too: double-digit growth in autism diagnoses in Canada; expanded services on reduced budgets; more private-sector interests finding ways to turn a profit in the delivery of social services. But allowing for all of that, the big costs for a funding body like Community Living B.C. still ought to be relatively predictable over the long term. When it comes to a lifetime cond...

*Note: Here's further news coverage from October  after Rick Mowles was fired, and another follow from Nov. 4 detailing Mowles' $345,000 severance package While browsing the Community Living BC Web site for information about cuts to services, I found myself comparing compensation paid to CLBC executives since the Crown corporation was started in 2005-2006. Very, very interesting. CEO Rick Mowles has seen a 59 per cent increase in his annual compensation over the four fiscal years from 2005-06 to 2009-10, pushing him to almost $231,000. Doug Woollard, vice-president of operations and the man most often mentioned in stories about more service cuts at CLBC, has seen his compensation climb 57 per cent in that same period, to almost $176,000. Wow. Meanwhile, the money for contracted services for people with developmental disabilities - the raison d'etre of CLBC - fell $5 million in the 2009-10 fiscal year compared to the previous year. (Can't do comparisons back to 2...

An excerpt from Hansard, from the May 3 session of the BC legislature. Social Development Minister Harry Bloy, a brand-new cabinet minister, has obviously learned the lesson well of just repeating the same key message over and over, even when it makes no sense whatsoever in the context of the information that the Opposition members are bringing forward.  Really, the public should not let Community Living B.C. and the government get away with this fairy tale about how nobody with a developmental disability has been forced out of their group home against their will - it simply isn't true. And yes, there have been cuts, regardless of what Bloy says - when you add in new people who qualify for service without increasing funding, the others who have been receiving services up to that point have to take a cut for that to happen. It's basic math.  SERVICES FOR DEVELOPMENTALLY DISABLED PERSONS N. Simons: Last week in this House the minister responsible for Community Living B.C. ...

I'm reprinting a letter from a desperate mom of a young man with a mental handicap, who is one of several thousand in B.C. experiencing major cutbacks in service and residential care right now. I've heard from many people like this woman - and there are many, many more people with developmental disabilities in our province who don't even have any family to advocate for them.  Hi Jody I'm a mother of a mentally handicapped 24 year old man. I would like to thank you for your article to let people know what's really going on. I think the government and CLBC should be sued for falsely advertising themselves as trying to help families care for their handicapped family member.  My husband and I  take care of our son as he still lives at home. They do not want to give us as parents the help we need. All we hear is no money and wait lists! These government bodies are looking to take away their responsibility and push it on aging  family members. Thi...

It's cruel and stupid to close group homes The provincial government can dance all it likes, and certainly has, around the sticky issue of whether it’s closing group homes for people with developmental disabilities. But it is. So let’s give up this crazy pretence that B.C. isn’t closing group homes, when the fact is that anyone with an ear to the ground knows it’s already well underway. I mean, come on, guys - the least you can do is be honest. Here’s Housing and Social Development Minister Rich Coleman in the legislature April 13, as captured in Hansard during a strategically worded cat-and-mouse game on the subject with New Democrat MLA Shane Simpson. “We don't do forced moves, if that's what the member is getting to,” Coleman told Simpson. “We do, though, sometimes, when we have a redesign or have to have a repositioning with regards to our facilities, work extensively with the families and the advocates to walk them through what other opportunities are available in add...

I met with three families recently who are frightened by the rumours they’re hearing about the group homes where some of their family members live. They’re not alone. Back when B.C. was closing the big institutions like Woodlands and Glendale in the 1980s and 90s, group homes housing four to six people were touted as the way of the future for people with severe mental handicaps, and money-savers to boot. But that was then. Now, the government is back looking for more savings. The group homes that families believed would always be there have suddenly become the focus for budget cuts at Community Living B.C., the five-year-old Crown agency charged with overseeing housing and support services for adults with developmental disabilities. A shift away from group homes isn’t necessarily a bad thing if well-handled, at least not for residents with the potential to thrive in more independent housing. More than 2,700 CLBC clients already live outside of the group-home system in B.C.,...

B.C. families need to fight for group homes I remember the exact moment I started to look at people with mental handicaps in a completely different way. It was 1985, not long after the province had closed the huge institution for “retarded” people at Tranquille, an old tuberculosis sanatorium outside Kamloops. I was working at a Kamloops newspaper at the time and the closure was big news, so I’d been part of documenting the hope, fear, anger and anticipation that the closure had sparked. Families had been working for long, long lifetimes by then to move things forward for their mentally handicapped children, who were all ages. They had few choices in those years when it came to finding services or schooling for their children in their own home towns, and often had no option but to send their children hundreds of kilometres away to institutions such as Tranquille, Woodlands and Glendale. The families were mostly over the moon at the thought that Tranquille’s closure would allow th...