Real Estate Suspense:  I suppose real estate transactions are more similar than different, special needs or otherwise; competing with another offer, seemingly winning the prize, but there is that inspection. Today at noon we meet with DDS at the apartment. All seems in order or easily resolved. Lease was signed. For fifteen days, until the end of the month, the parents are responsible for the rent. July 1, all that changes. Ability Beyond Disability will be in charge of disbursing payments from allocations for rent, utilities, cable and so on. That will be weird but welcomed.

A Harsh Reminder of Vulnerability: A fellow former Riverview parent sent me an article that shed a harsh glare of reality on our journey. A survey sponsored by ARC and entitled “Still In The Shadows With Their Future Uncertain” called FINDS (A Report on Family and Individual Needs for Disability Supports (FINDS), 2011, covers both the history of funding programs for I/DD (Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities) and a deeply disturbing future. Whatever our daughter may have allocated for her today could be swept away tomorrow by legislators and a public without a clue. The individual profiles featured are heart wrenching.

Chilling: This report frightens me and enlists me. Hopefully it will have a useful influence on others as well. How odd to receive this today, precisely when I began to lower my guard a bit, thinking naively that our daughter would be taken care of by programs we worked hard to put in place, and by our extended family who would always keep an eye on her. Silly me. But isn’t this a norm for any parent?  It is never over, the watchfulness and the wishing.

Celebration: I drove our daughter over to the apartment yesterday; she peered in through the windows. She walked around the periphery where there are trees, shrubs and a red brick walkway, creating the feel of a little cottage. She loved it. By the end of today, we should know if it is a go.

©Jill Edelman, M.S.W, L.C.S.W. 2011