a little bigger with four, five, six, or seven people living in a community home. There are, remember, 46 NSRAA agencies across the province, so the needs vary from place to place. The Independent Living Support Program sees residents of these communities applying for an apartment of their own, for instance, and then after approval they are setup with an independent living support worker who works with them for a number of hours a week, assisting them with what we would call activities of daily living. KW: That reminds me of something that Michael Kendrick, an internationally recognized consultant in human services and community work supporting people with disabilities, always says: It’s not enough to just build buildings. To have success in a community, you have to help build a life – and that’s what NSRAA really does. KL: I couldn’t agree more. The NSRAA helps build lives and I think where the brick-and- mortar model failed, the com- munities are succeeding. The people we assist really have a purpose in life. Many of them go to work, school, they have big social circles and participate in community activities like church groups and sports teams. All of the things that you would put together and collectively make up a life. Historically, people with disabilities were “protected” from all of this and I think the push toward community living and inclusive living has been breaking down barriers every- where that it exists. Full acceptance from the community makes the community stronger. What people in communities need to realize about what we do is that it’s up to the people with disabilities who we serve who ultimately figure out what their needs are and how to put together an individualized plan. When you see someone with a disability living and working and partici- pating in a community, it’s because they want to be there doing what they do, what they love. Are there any particular approaches that have seen more success than others in regard to community living? KL: I wouldn’t say that there’s a specific contextual program that we all follow, but we certainly all reach toward the goals set out in our mandate. Those mandates focus on per- son-directed programming, valuing, and listening to what people say. Everyone we serve knows to some degree how they want to participate in their own communities, so it’s not about what we think is best or not. Do you ever work directly with property developers and real estate agencies? KW: There are certainly individual landlords who work with a variety of the agencies throughout Nova Scotia and there is actually a lot of discussion about how to go about doing this. It is, for example, very difficult to secure the financial backing to buy a house as a non-profit. The hoops you have to jump through aren’t any easier on our end of things. Many of the smaller communities have even more difficulty when
it comes to financing property and finding support. Gener- ally, the larger agencies have a better relationship with their banks and are able to come up with more creative ways of financing. When you’re dealing with one or two houses it’s more dif- ficult than when you have a lot of homes. So in terms of real estate, some of the agencies own their own homes and some rent their homes. It’s important to remember that all of these agencies are governed by a board of directors, because they are non-profits. Each of the 46 agencies has a slightly differ- ent view of how things should go or what they’re willing to support. The training centres tried the one solution model and we’re not willing to go back to the one solution system. That’s what community living is: community solutions.
That’s about as grass roots as it gets.
KW: It is very grass roots. Our board, for example, has been in existence for many years. It began as a group of aging parents who had children with disabilities and they were scared about what was going to happen to their children when they could no longer provide support for them in their
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