Michener Centre still has a full house despite the efforts to relocate 125 out of 229 residents from the centre for the developmentally disabled.
In June, Alberta Human Services reported 20 private guardians were interested in exploring other housing options, with the first person leaving Michener possibly by the end of the month.
But so far, no one has been moved.
Currently, the province says 40 relocations are in the planning stages.
Lee Kvern, whose 55-year-old sister Jody lives at Michener Centre, said according to about 80 families and guardians who attended a July 20 meeting, most people still reject the plan to move residents.
“Someone asked the question at that meeting — who still wants to fight. Almost everybody put their hands up. We just know what we have at Michener,” said Kvern, of Okotoks. on Monday.
In March, without any discussion with parents and guardians of Michener residents, the province announced that 125 residents will be relocated starting in September. Fifty of them, who are medically fragile, are to be moved to seniors care facilities. Another 104 residents who live in Michener Hill group homes were being allowed to stay.
The province has since decided that 79 of the people in the group homes will be able to remain in place, while 25 will have to leave Michener. About 30 residents living on the centre’s north and south sites will be considered to fill the group home vacancies.
The province previously promised that nobody would be forced to leave Michener and that residents, whose average age is 60, could live there until they died.
Kvern said parents and guardians are talking to Michener’s transition team, but all people receive are vague reassurances.
“The truth of the matter is once our people leave Michener, they no longer are the government’s responsibility so it’s neither here nor there what the government says. It’s between you and the private provider.”
Meanwhile, services for Persons with Developmental Disabilities (PDD) in the community are still facing cuts, she said.
Kvern’s sister moved into a group home in the community in the early 1990s where she was heavily medicated and at times her behaviour became unmanageable. Once she had to be restrained by police. She returned to Michener eight years later where her drug dosages were reduced and so were her extreme behaviour and seizures.
“My sister was out in community and it was disastrous.”
Kvern wanted to know where people with PDD will go if they don’t fit community care.
According to Michener staff, people from the community, or places like Red Deer Remand, are still accepted at Michener even though the centre hasn’t “officially” taken in new residents for 10 years, she said.
“That just proves Michener still fills a niche. Once they take that piece of the puzzle of out of mental health, where do they go? They can’t live in a psych ward.
“There’s nothing in between community care and short-term stays at the psych ward which cost $1,300 a day.”
Cheryl Chichak, spokesperson with Alberta Human Services, in Edmonton, said she understood that Michener Centre hasn’t been taking new admissions for quite some time.
But Michener Services will continue to operate its group homes, she said.
“If vacancies open up in these group homes in the future, it is possible that they will accept new admissions,” Chichak said.
So far the Keep Michener Open campaign has collected almost 20,000 signatures. The petition will be presented in the legislature in the fall.
The City of Red Deer is allowing Keep Michener Open lawn signs to stay on lawns. Originally the signs were supposed to be removed by Aug. 1, but the city decided to wave that deadline.
About 2,000 signs have gone out, with the majority posted in Red Deer.
szielinski@www.reddeeradvocate.com