WE...our family...
NEEDS A HOME WHERE WE CAN BE TOGETHER.
REASON 1. My son is capable and deserves the ability to live in a home with his family and those I choose to care for him.
REASON 2. Renting a home means we do not qualify for many adaptive home grants, and that many of them cannot be completed due to how they permanently alter the house...therefore...they're absence compromises our safety.
REASON 3. My son is 15 years old, bright, without safety awareness, 6' 2" tall, 230 lbs of muscle and not getting any smaller.
REASON 4. He needs 24 hour supervision by either myself (inside the home) or 2/1 on any out of the house adventures...ie...a walk.
REASON 5. After years of appeals, fund seeking, pleas to my ex, our insurance, and the school, we continue to get two choices: institutionalize or medicate. Honestly, both have been fully investigated and even an acute care setting...one of the best was sought. NEITHER OFFERED ANYTHING CLOSE TO WHAT HE HAD AT HOME.
REASON 6. State funding and federal funding for our families is being dropped because we have no voice. We are busy supervising, teaching, SEEKING SERVICES, going to therapies, IEP meetings to no avail, socializing and cooking special diets for our kids. Oh, and fixing the things they break in our homes on a daily basis.
REASON 7. My son is up at least four to six hours a night...not just up, but finding his way into locked cabinets, pouring foods, soaps and anything liquid out on the floor, playing with feces, breaking or staining furniture, putting all laundry into the shower, starting fires on the burners or in the toaster...YES!!! AND...he keeps getting smarter and more devisive about it. Unsupervised cannot happen...so...nor can sleep for me.
REASON 8. The state gives me maximum of 25 hours a week for my son. The school will not offer help or teaching in our home, although that is, at this time, the LEAST RESTRICTIVE ENVIRONMENT (a federal law...for those of you outside the IEP world). The state gives little, unreliable amounts of respite monies, which I cannot depend on to hire people and keep them, because this job is hard, physically daunting and they need health insurance and stability.
REASON 9. The state has contracts with institutions, foster care and other crappy alternatives, that end up costing YOU a whole lot more money to fund, than helping families like our get on their feet. I CANNOT WORK BECAUSE JUS'S NEEDS ARE THAT INTENSE. My ex works and makes a six digit income but no court will require his financial responsibility, so this is also on a 'as we need it, if he feels like it' basis...again offering NO STABILITY OR SANITY to our family.
REASON 10. I AM TIRED OF FIGHTING AND ASKING. I NEED A FOUNDATION, PHILANTHROPY, AND CHARITY NOW. I would like help building a home where our family can be together...and I would like to make this possible for the millions of other families, like ours, who are silent, scared and feeling stuck. We are an amazing family. HELP US.
suggestions and comments below please!