There's a silent population that many people are not considering; those living with special needs who may soon find themselves homeless.
Michelle Stone is the organizer of the Stratford Social Club for Special Needs, and she advocates for people and families living with special needs.
“I have one client who continues to be in a crisis situation and they can't get into an agency, not even emergency housing at this point to give these parents much-needed respite,” Stone explained. “The parents are awake, 24 hours a day with this child right now because of where their situation is at, so why do we have to be in a crisis before we can find something like that?”
According to a report from Community Living Ontario in November 2024, more than 52,000 people are waiting to access developmental services in Ontario with many looking for multiple types of support. The report also concluded that more than 28,000 people are waiting for housing-related support.
Locally the support for those with special needs that require housing is challenging, and Stone says she is seeing this first-hand with one of her clients.
“I have a young lady who doesn't have any funding and she is fighting to be independent; she can’t work because her Epilepsy causes her to have so many seizures, and she is in a housing unit with other vulnerable people including those battling mental health challenges,” Stone said, “This young lady cannot cook for herself due to her condition, so she gets meals delivered each day. Someone in her apartment complex who is living with mental health challenges and self-medicating was uttering death threats to her, so she called the police and was told they cannot do anything until something happens.”
Stone adds she has even seen people living with special needs taken to places that specialize in dealing with people with mental health challenges due to the lack of housing in the community.
“They don't have a voice, they don't get to go anywhere, because well, you're not in crisis, there's nothing,” Stone said. “When they do get support, they end up potentially at the mental health ward in the hospital. That's not that's not a great atmosphere for people either, because some of the people that require support, potentially have transitional issues, so why are we transitioning them this way?”
Stone decided to learn more about the needs of those with special needs and their families in the area, which is how the Stratford Social Club for Special Needs first started.
“I put a message on Facebook and I just started asking questions, Stone said. “I started meeting with parents who shared similar concerns— about what to do after their child leaves high school, what's next for the loved ones and how they often become isolated.”
From there, Stone discovered that the community needs day programming.
“We need a day program, but I started by connecting in the community with more families to determine how many families need a day program, and what they want it to look like,” Stone said. “Events were one way to help with the respite and isolation, so we're just like trying different things as much as possible to figure out what people will attend and what they won't.”
From there, the club has hosted events and plans to continue to host more. They held a Halloween event which was the pilot event and others followed that, but the next big event will take place on March 4 with a pancake dinner from 5-6:30 p.m. at the Bethel Pentecostal Church.
“I would like to do three big events per year and some of these smaller things that I'm doing build those into the program,” Stone said. “I think those things are important because people are still making connections and we're still in the community with your peers, which is a safe space for most people.”
Stone adds that the word is getting out and more and more people are joining in on the fun events they hold.
“I feel like it's slowly growing, but we usually have some of the same people,” said Stone. “It’s a good mix of agency and community people, which is great. I'd like to see more community participation which we are slowly working towards, because I think people still don't know we are out there.”
Putting on events, and getting their name out there is the first step as the big picture is looking at dedicated and supportive housing for those with special needs in the community, potentially in the form of an apartment-style building.
“I believe that there's certainly some people in the community that need more one-on-one support, but there's also some people that don't need that heavy of support,” Stone said. “Some people just need gentle reminders about certain things, or some light supports around meals and personal care and stuff like that. Dedicated housing would be designed specifically for people with special needs, met with supports built-in, but that they can still have the flexibility and the freedom of being, as independent as possible.”