Transition from institution to Parry Sound community.
Photo from ground breaking of Burritt Street Residential facility in 2007. Shown from left, Ferdinand Regier, Mitchell Architects; John McIsaac, Morgan Construction; Laurie Beaton, manager, residential services, Community Living Parry Sound; Ken Porter, Morgan Construction; Bill Attwell, board member; Janet Childerhose, board member; Julie Flagler, president of board of directors, Community Living Parry Sound.
Submitted photo
Parry Sound is situated geographically rather close to the first institution opened in Ontario for people with disabilities.
First opened in Orillia in 1876 and known as the Ontario Asylum for Idiots, it was later renamed Huronia Regional Centre.
By 1968, at the height of its operations, this one facility alone housed 2,600 people. The number of institutions and the number of people living in them continued to grow until the mid-1970s.
By 1976, Ontario operated 16 institutions, which provided residential care to more than 10,000 people. This was an era of institutional care, which was the norm for people with developmental disabilities.
Institutional care reflected the societal attitudes of the time; some of which were benevolent, if not patronizing, suggesting that people should be institutionalized for their own good and would benefit in living with others just like them.
While other attitudes were embedded in fear or worse, hostility, what they all share is the idea that the person with a developmental disability is not one of us.
These attitudes resulted in families being torn apart and people being locked away in institutions where at times they were subjected to living in unimaginable conditions and subjected to horrific abuses.
It was not until 1960 when the Toronto Star published an article by Pierre Berton that an outcry for reform began that ultimately changed the government’s policy.
The movement toward community-based services essentially began in the 1960s when attitudes toward people with developmental disabilities began to change.
The Community Living movement, as it was coined by the provincial government, was spreading across North America.
It started with many families dreaming of a better life for their sons and daughters living in institutions.
People with disabilities also began to advocate for their own rights to live as full citizens.
Advocates believed that people with disabilities - including developmental disabilities - are citizens who have the right to participate in community life, regardless of the level of disability and to live in their communities just like everyone else.
The Ontario government responded by increasingly funding more services and supports in the community in the form of group living as well as day programs, sheltered workshops and life skills programs.
Over the following four decades the shift was progressive.
In 2009 the last of 16 Ontario facilities, the Huronia Regional Centre and two others, were closed, fulfilling the provincial government’s commitment made in 1987 to move from an institution-based system developed on a medical model to a community-based service for people with developmental disabilities.
This was an historical step forward and nearly 6,000 adults were successfully transitioned to new homes in the community. Numerous families and community members voiced great concerns when the closures were first announced, as change is often a very uncomfortable process.
Person centered planning with people, families, facility staff, medical professionals and community service agencies ensured that people found homes that better met their individual needs and wishes.
In 1977 the Board of Directors of the West Parry Sound Association for the Mentally Retarded approved the proposal for the first group home with an estimated budget of $62,582.00.
In 1978 this home for six people was opened at 67 Church Street.
This began the development of community-based services in Parry Sound, which would welcome many people’s home and reunite them with their families.
In 1979 a second group home was opened on Belvedere Avenue, providing accommodations for eight people.
The Apartment Program, later renamed the Supported Independent Living Program, opened in 1981 and began a movement towards more individualized supports, which could not be offered in a group living environment.
In 1985 property was purchased on Church Street to construct a four-plex apartment building to provide alternative accommodations for the people living in the group home at 67 Church Street.
The apartments provide greater privacy and opportunity for more independent living, yet maintain staff supports.
In 1988 a new group home was opened on Addie Street.
This home was constructed specifically to facilitate the closure of a small institution in Gravenhurst called the Muskoka Centre.
Once again people were welcomed back to their home community.
In 1994 the Family Home Program was established to provide people with a broader range of accommodation options.
It provides an opportunity for a person with a developmental disability to live with a family and share in their day-to-day lives.
This program has been extremely successful and the demand for this option outweighs our funding.
In 1995 the Church Street four-plex was expanded to a six-plex and the Family Home Program was expanded to enable the closure of the group home located on Belvedere Avenue.
Apartment living and Family Home both created more personalized living opportunities than what a large group home could provide.
In 2008 a group home for five people was opened at Burritt Street.
The design of the building could accommodate people with multiple disabilities and would ensure that the last few people from Parry Sound who remained living in an institution would finally come home.
2009 was an historic year for the Community Living movement as we celebrated the final closure of the last three remaining institutions, signifying the end of an era of systematic segregation and seclusion that began in the province of Ontario more than 160 years before.
Although this was a time of great celebration, it was also a time of sober reflection.
While celebrating 6,000 people who had left institutions since 1987, we also mourned the hundreds of people who died after having been institutionalized for most, if not all of their lives for no other reason than that they had a disability.