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January 12, 2022. “Warehousing disabled people in long-term care homes needs to stop. Instead, nationalize home care”. Fritsch, K. & Shanouda, F. for The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/warehousing-disabled-people-in-long-term-care-homes-needs-to-stop-instead-nationalize-home-care-173412?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
It’s time to dismantle and replace the LTC system with deinstitutional options that prioritize the flourishing of disabled people and meet the complex care needs of older and younger disabled people outside the confines of institutions.
November 21, 2021. “Some young adults with disabilities are stuck in long-term care. They say that’s discrimination.” Gillmore, M. for Broadview Magazine. https://broadview.org/young-people-with-disabilities-long-term-care/
Without proper support to live at home, they have no choice but to stay in “medical prison cells”
November 4, 2021. “A penny a poppy”. Linton, M. for Briarpatch Magazine https://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/view/sheltered-workshops-poppies-disabled-workers
Sheltered workshops are largely exempt from employment standards acts, legalizing sub-minimum wage and unpaid overtime. In the workshops, disabled workers build wooden crates, pick garlic, assemble windshield wiper tubes, make dog food, package student exam care packages, and pin poppies – usually for a few pennies per item.
September 2, 2021. “The Institution that Remains: the Manitoba Developmental Centre and Disabled Confinement in Manitoba”. Linton, M., for Winnipeg Police Cause Harm. https://winnipegpolicecauseharm.org/blog/the-institution-that-remains-the-manitoba-developmental-centre-and-disabled-confinement-in-manitoba/
Institutions, be it prisons, personal care homes, group homes, or psychiatric institutions are designed to segregate, isolate and invisibilize disabled people, particularly those labelled with intellectual/developmental disabilities. These institutions are unique, but are intricately woven together with carceral logic–which rationalizes confinement and control.
July 1, 2021. “The COVID outbreaks that Ontario wasn’t counting”. Loreto, N., in Macleans. https://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/the-covid-outbreaks-that-ontario-wasnt-counting/
It was clear that COVID-19 infection was more deadly for disabled adults. So how many died in care facilities, and why wasn’t Ontario reporting the number?
March 3, 2021. “Prioritize disabled Canadians in group homes for vaccines, says advocate”. Tunney, J., in CBC News Ottawa. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/group-home-settings-eastern-ontario-health-unit-1.5933588
Brother with disability is among those largely forgotten, says Sandra Valliquette.
February 24 2021. “Ontario’s Hidden Institutions.” Linton, M., in Canadian Dimension. https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/custodial-institutions-ontarios-hidden-victims
Facilities like ‘domiciliary hostels’ are an outdated model of custodial care that violates disabled people’s rights
February 24, 2021. “Why one woman is sounding the alarm about COVID-19 in homes for people with disabilities.” Neal, A., in CBC: All in a Day with Alan Neal. https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-92-all-in-a-day/clip/15826613-one-woman-sounding-alarm-covid-19-homes-people-disabililites
We speak with a disability advocate who is calling for more transparency in institutions for some of Ottawa’s most vulnerable people.
February 18 2021. “Invisible People and Institutions: No data about Custodial Institutions for Disabled People in Canada?”. Linton, M., Chokly, K., & Lauriault, T., in DataLibre. http://datalibre.ca/2021/02/18/invisible-people-and-institutions-no-data-about-custodial-institutions-for-disabled-people-in-canada/
Residential service homes are congregate institutions that provide long-term housing to chronically unhoused, older and/or disabled adults over the age of 18.
January 14, 2021. “On Prisons and Personal Care Homes: Disabled Confinement and COVID-19”. Linton, M., in Winnipeg Police Cause Harm. https://winnipegpolicecauseharm.org/blog/on-prisons-and-personal-care-disabled-confinement-and-covid-19/
The pandemic has made clear the connections between sites of confinement and incarceration. Personal care homes, prisons, and institutions for disabled people have disproportionately experienced outbreaks, death, and long-term debilitation of incarcerated people.
January 14, 2021. “Vaccinate and Deinstitutionalize Now: residential service homes and the failure of independent living”. Linton, M., in Disability Justice Network of Ontario. https://www.djno.ca/post/vaccinate-deinstitutionalize-now-residential-service-homes-and-the-failure-of-independent-living
The most recent outbreaks at residential service homes and long term care facilities in Ontario demonstrate the urgent need to continue pursuing deinstitutionalization in the province.
November 18, 2020. “‘Warehouses like this are not the answer’: Exposing the crisis of long-term care in Manitoba”. Linton, M., in Canadian Dimension. https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/warehouses-like-this-not-the-answer-exposing-crisis-long-term-care-manitoba
82% of Canada’s COVID-19 deaths have been in long-term care.
May 21, 2020. “They Promised Never Again: Institutionalization in Pandemic”. Linton, M., in Disability Justice Network of Ontario. https://www.djno.ca/post/they-promised-never-again-institutionalization-in-pandemic
COVID-19 has reinforced what many in the disability community have long known; institutionalization did not end in 2008.
April 20, 2020. “Institutional Legacies of Violence: Neoliberalism and custodial care in Ontario”. Linton, M., in Canadian Dimension. https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/institutional-legacies-of-violence-of-custodial-care-in-ontario
On April 15, Patty Baird was the first disabled adult living at Participation House, a residential institution for disabled adults in Markham, to die from COVID-19. She was 52 years-old. Her death was followed by the passing of Martin Frogley, another resident of Participation House, and the infection of 36 other residents.
March 31, 2020. “We have always been disposable: The Structural Violence of Neoliberalism”. Linton, M., in Canadian Dimension. https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/we-have-always-been-disposable-the-structural-violence-of-neoliberal-healthcare
The marriage of neoliberalism and the medical industrial complex has had disastrous results in Canada