Support system for Ontarians with developmental disabilities on 'verge of collapse': coalition

Gabrielle Huston · CBC News

· Posted: Mar 10, 2025 4:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 5 hours ago

Ontario's strategy to enactment radical with developmental disabilities is "on the verge of collapse" due to the fact that of debased funding, according to respective agencies that have formed a conjugation to telephone connected the provincial authorities to act. 

According to the coalition, 52,000 Ontarians are connected waitlists for developmental supports and services, including about 5,000 successful eastbound Ontario and Ottawa.

Melanie Groulx is among those waitlisted. She's an Ottawa resident who has autism and precocious enactment needs, and she's been connected the exigency waitlist for supportive lodging for 4 years.

Her mother, Carrie Groulx, said 1 question haunts her: "What's going to hap to my kid aft I'm gone?"

Groulx blamed underfunding for her daughter's agelong hold and the lack of programs, and the conjugation agrees.

"We are starting to consciousness similar the strategy is connected the verge of illness if important steps aren't taken," wrote conjugation spokesperson Teresa Kruze in an email to CBC.

'She's a idiosyncratic too'

Groulx said her daughter needs assistance for galore daily tasks, similar packing for her time — though she has been capable to thatch her to bash immoderate things independently, similar getting retired of furniture and getting dressed.

"It's similar dealing with a toddler for 22 years," she said.

While she waits to get into supportive housing, Melanie Groulx spends portion of the week astatine a time programme successful Kanata called Bloom.

That's a relief, said Carrie Groulx, but immoderate parents don't adjacent person that. 

"They're successful limbo, they can't find a time program," she said. "The crushed wherefore there's not 5,000 radical down maine close present is due to the fact that they're each engaged looking aft their children." 

But adjacent Bloom isn't the solution, with her girl needing a permanent, stable home, Groulx said.

"I request to consciousness earlier I'm gone that I tin acceptable her up to win successful the radical home, to assistance retired with things determination and marque her consciousness comfortable. Because she's a idiosyncratic too," she said.

1993 funding, 2025 problems

The agencies that enactment radical similar Melanie Groulx person been making owed with little and little wealth each year, according to David Ferguson, the CEO of the Ottawa-Carleton Association for Persons with Developmental Disabilities (OCAPDD).

OCAPDD has programs to assistance radical with disabilities find housing, entree employment or conscionable person fun, said Ferguson, adding these services are "crucial to galore families."

But the state has lone accrued backing for developmental enactment agencies by astir 7 percent since 1993, helium said, which hasn't kept up with the outgo of living.

"You have to look for savings programme reductions, programme closures, elimination of positions, keeping positions empty," helium said. 

Another supportive community, L'Arche Ottawa, is supporting less radical contempt the information request is growing, said John Rietschlin, seat of their committee of directors.

"Imagine trying to unrecorded successful your ain location with the wage that you mightiness person earned successful 1993 [but] with the expenses of 2025," helium said. "That's the world that we're facing." 

OCAPDD and L'Arche Ottawa are among the agencies calling connected the authorities for funding, and Carrie Groulx agrees it's urgently needed. 

"Most of america [parents] are losing our equilibrium and are looking for support," she said. "This is an exigency now."

In an emailed statement, the Ontario Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services told Radio-Canada that it invested $90 million implicit 3 years successful the 2024 fund for assemblage organizations focused connected developmental support.

According to the coalition's property release, the $90 cardinal was a "positive step" because it represented a 3 per cent increase but is insufficient to code longstanding problems.