Can you imagine being forced to be live in a locked unit in a psychiatric hospital even

though you neither wanted nor needed to stay in the hospital, let alone in a locked unit?

Can you imagine your feelings if you were repeatedly told that you would be found a home
in the community but it never happened?

I can and it makes me shudder.

Listen to my interview on CBC's Main Street program concerning the current Human
Rights claim against the Province with respect to housing for individuals with intellectual
disabilities.

In 2015, a Human Rights Complaint was brought against the Disability Support program on
behalf of three long-term residents of Emerald Hall.

Intended to be a temporary (up to three months) acute care in-patient unit serving clients who
live with intellectual disabilities as well as complex mental and/or physical health issues, there
are individuals who have spent literally decades "living" there. Not because they needed the
services the unit provides, but because

Emerald Hall supports adults living with a mental illness and developmental disability who are
not able to live in the community either because of a lack of available resources or a need for
intense support that is only available in hospital. Many of Emerald Hall’s current clients are
long-term residents. As such its occupancy is almost always 100 per cent. However, crisis
admission is sometimes available to registered clients.
(Emphasis added)

This complaint, if successful, has the potential to shake up the Disability Support program for all
of us, in a very positive way. The crux of the case is the argument that the three complainants
were discriminated against by being forced to stay in an institution, where they neither want nor
need to be. That DCS discriminated against these individuals by providing assistance for people
without disabilities, who are in need, to live in the community while failing for many,
many years to take into account and accommodate their differing needs and offer supports for
them to live in the community.