UPDATE: Let us Speak, January 16th, 2025
We are incredibly overwhelmed by the number of outpouring
phone calls, messages, and offers to help ensure self-advocacy voices
remain heard. Our friends, community partners, and decision-makers
understand self-advocacy's critical role in improving society's access.
We were overwhelmed when 120 people joined our media
release yesterday, January 15th. It means so much to all of us
who work alongside us in building a province we are proud of, and accessible
to all.
We hope to continue informing you of our next steps. We will
try our best to track the media that has risen to the cause to capture the
impact of this decision. More importantly, we thank the media and all of you
for your ongoing support and for valuing the expertise and wisdom of the self-advocacy
movement. We encourage you to share your story with us and with decision-makers.
Letters and in-person meetings matter most as
decision-makers are obligated to respond.
We are incredibly thankful to the Alberta government for
supporting, working with, and listening to us for over two decades and for
understanding that vulnerable groups need safe spaces to gather and build
trust.
- In our experience, we have learned that engaging the disability community meaningfully through groups such as ours helps inform decision-makers and community partners to builds a better province and it saves money (a small investment in big savings). We know that members of the government who are most familiar with our
work did not make this decision lightly.
- We hope you can help us
raise awareness that community-based self-advocacy is essential
to access community disability barriers, leaving long-term positive outcomes when we work
together to improve access.
- It has been our experience that community-based advocacy helps build better bridges, express our culture through access to the community and arts, have a purpose, and learn and experience disability pride, which we are
grateful for.
Link to the news release, January 15th, “Let us Speak.”
Global News story (MORE TO COME)
What Hall members have to say about the Disability Action Hall's loss of funding (Impact Statements)
Hi, my name is Amber Cutter. I moved to Calgary three
years ago because I believed the government here cared about people with
disabilities. I became a member of Action Hall and was very excited to be part
of their self-advocacy group. When you have a disability, it's empowering to
teach others how to treat people like us and to stand up for ourselves. Action
Hall did much more than that; they gave me a life and a voice.
Now, it feels like you are taking away my voice and my
happy life because you chose to eliminate something so important for adults
with disabilities. This decision will affect hundreds if not thousands, of
individuals and the workers who support them.
I want you to imagine if this situation involved your
child. Would you want someone to treat you or your family this way? Probably
not. These individuals may seem like strangers to you, but to me, they are
beautiful people who deserve support. They have a right to a good life, and
they depend on organizations like SCOPE, Action Hall, and others that you plan
to cut funding for.
There are many disabled individuals who will not know
what to do with their lives if these services are taken away, and they will be
scared. This decision will have a horrible impact on them. I urge you to
reconsider what you are doing. Please find a different solution. Don't you
think their lives are tough enough already? Do we really need to make things
even harder for them?
Thank you,
Amber Cutter
Impact Statement
"I greatly value the
Disability Action Hall, not just for their advocacy work and connecting people
with resources, but also how it helped facilitate connection within the
disability community. Especially when, for many disabled persons, it is much more
difficult for us to forge those critical connections. I came to the Disability
Action Hall at a time of my life when I really needed a connection with other
people, like me, locally. So, to hear that so many disability rights groups
have had their funding cut so unexpectedly is both deeply upsetting and
infuriating to me.
What we need most now is to extend kindness and empathy to our community. I
wish I had all the answers in light of this situation. All I know is that when
things become most dire, building and sustaining community--in whichever way we
can--is the most crucial thing."
- - Disability Action Hall member
Impact Statement
I am writing in response to the news that I saw yesterday
in regards to the provincial government cutting funding from disability
advocacy groups. I saw the new on CTV, Global Calgary and CBC website
yesterday.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-government-axes-funding-for-3-disability-advocacy-groups-1.7432469
https://globalnews.ca/news/10960851/alberta-disability-rights-groups-funding/
https://globalnews.ca/news/10960851/alberta-disability-rights-groups-funding/
I am a person with a developmental disability and mental illness. Even though I
have a diagnosed developmental disability, I am currently not eligible to take
part in any disability program that is funded by the Government of Alberta's
Persons With Developmental disabilities program because my IQ is above
70. https://www.alberta.ca/pdd-eligibility#:~:text=To%20be%20eligible%20for%20the%20PDD%20program%2C%20you%20must%3A,to%20receive%20services%20in%20Alberta
I am also on AISH. A couple of months ago my mental health worker informed me
that you folks cut stopped providing the private landlord supplement
to my landlord, which would end up making my rent increase to regular market
value despite the fact I have a low income. I asked my mental health worker if
she could remain being my mental worker when I move out of my place. She said
no because my place is designed to be a place that provides housing to people
with mental illness only. So, in other words, I lose my place because rent is
going too high for me to afford, and my mental health support because of a
decision the provincial government has made is not in the best interest of me
and my other mentally ill neighbours but because the government simply wants to
stop supplementing our landlord.
Now I've read that you want to stop funding the only group that supports me as
a whole person with a developmental disability and mental illness. It baffles
me. I don't know why you'd do that.
To say that disability advocacy groups do not provide essential services to
members of the disability community is wrong. They do provide an essential
service! Below is the proof:
1. Because of disability advocacy groups, people on AISH can get to their
doctor's appointments, work, the AISH office, see their family and friends, go
to school, and be productive members of society all by simply using the
low-income bus pass disability advocacy groups have advocated for them to have.
https://calgaryherald.com/news/traffic/theres-a-need-more-than-10000-calgarians-a-month-buying-new-5-05-transit-pass
2. It is because of disability advocacy groups caregivers are being taught how
to handle topics regarding sexuality, healthy relationships, boundaries, etc...
when people with disabilities bring the topics up to them. https://www.centreforsexuality.ca/training-centre/all-workshops/supporting-sexuality-pdd/
https://www.centreforsexuality.ca/about-us/r2l-group/#:~:text=Right%20to%20Love%20(R2L)%20is,make%20healthy%20choices%20about%20love.
3. It is because of the disability advocacy groups' communication with the
government of Alberta that people on AISH get their income raised automatically
annually. Without that communication people on AISH would even be further
behind in paying rent and other bills today due to the cost of living. https://calgary.citynews.ca/2023/12/16/alberta-aish-inome-support-increase-2024/
4. Disability advocacy groups don't only provide essential services to people
with disabilities. They also provide a sense of safety, friendship, family, and
belonging in an otherwise unaccommodating and unkind world. As a 15-year member
of a disability advocacy group called the Disability Action Hall, I beg you not
to cut disability advocacy funding, please! It is something we in the
disability community need more now than ever before!
Sincerely: Mary Salvani
Disability advocate and Disability Action Hall member