RED TAPE HURTS DISABLED MAN
It might be that rules can’t be bent, especially those administered by government bureaucracy.
But the rule frustrating Robert Simser, a 56-year-old disabled man in his search for an accessible apartment, is just so stupid it hurts: Ontario’s Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care says he can’t have his publicly funded, $8,000 battery-powered wheelchair — already set aside for him by a local mobility-aids provider — until he actually moves into an accessible unit.
Simser says the wheelchair would be stored in the interim at his girlfriend’s place, which is around the corner from his home. He says he would be able to get around more quickly and with less discomfort as he looks for an apartment, does groceries or goes to the doctor. He says going any farther than a short distance with his cane or walker is very painful.
“I’m very discouraged,” Simser says. “I need to get out of here.”
To add to his woes, Simser broke his wrist last week when he slipped and fell at the Morisset Avenue low-rise building where he lives, as he was trying to navigate one of the staircases from his fourth-floor apartment to the main entrance.
Simser suffers from various maladies, including a tumour in his spine, a blocked artery in his neck, a constant migraine he treats with morphine, and damaged nerve endings in his left leg and right arm. He is very unsteady on his feet. As his condition worsens, Simser expects he’ll soon spend most of his time in a wheelchair.
Simser thought he was getting the chair before Christmas. He acknowledged during an interview in early December that he was concerned how he would be able to use the device outside his unit, as his apartment build- ing isn’t accessible for people with disabilities. The building doesn’t have an elevator, a wheelchair ramp at the entrance or an automated door. He moved there last September because he needed a roof over his head after he couldn’t live with his family anymore. He pays about $800 a month in rent, and his landlord has told him he is free to leave anytime, despite his lease.
He originally thought that if he got the wheelchair before he found an accessible apartment, he would find a place to store it outside, near the building’s front entrance, and just take the stairs to get to the device.
Not the greatest idea, given that an expensive powered wheelchair would be a pretty good target for thieves, but Simser hoped his story, reported by The Public Citizen on Dec. 10, would have helped him land an accessible apartment quickly.
He looked at a place with a monthly rent of $900, which he says he could have managed despite his meagre Ontario disability pension. What turned him away was the common landlord requirement for the renter to provide the last month’s rent as a security deposit. He didn’t have the extra $900.
Health Ministry spokesman David Jensen says the government’s assistive-devices program “does not fund mobility devices that are used primarily for transportation and community access. Devices required only for use outside of an applicant’s place of residence are not eligible for funding assistance.
“Funding for mobility devices is for helping a person engage in activities of daily living within the home and to gain entry or exit from their place of residence.”
Occupational therapist Lesley Bruce, who applied to the assistive-devices program for Simser’s wheelchair, says she tells all clients before she submits an application that “under no circumstances will (a wheelchair) be dispensed until you’ve moved into an accessible place.”
She says she also helps clients with applications for social housing, though Simser says he could be waiting as long as 10 years for a unit because his medical problems are still not considered serious enough to make him a priority.
Through Bruce, Simser has also applied for Para Transpo service to help him get around, but he says he would still need a wheelchair once he leaves the vehicle.
If anyone can help Simser find an affordable and accessible apartment, he can be reached at 613-286-9462.