Sylene Argent, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Essex Free Press
“An investment in developmental services is an investment in the most vulnerable people who live in that community, and they are falling through the cracks now. And their caregivers are suffering the burden of care, unfortunately,” Corey Dalgleish, Executive Director of CLEC, said.
He noted Community Living Essex County (CLEC) has joined other developmental service groups in supporting the province-wide advocacy campaign #WaitingtoBelong, hoping to end the wait to supports and services.
This is a response to the Ministry of Children, Community, and Social Services’ Journey to Belonging framework – which its information notes is a long-term vision for developmental services, where people with developmental disabilities fully belong in their communities and are supported to live the lives they choose.
CLEC is hoping to highlight what he said is the crisis that is in the developmental service sector and affecting people with developmental disabilities. Those who are “unfortunately … left behind, and families are breaking under the weight of it,” Dalgleish added.
The local organization – that supports over 700 individuals living with an intellectual disability, and their families – is hoping to raise awareness of the campaign and get individuals to throw their support behind it as well, which can be done by signing a petition at www.waiting2belong.ca.
More information is available there, as well as stories of individuals who are impacted. He hopes people will share the information around.
“The sector is largely unified with a singular campaign and singular ask of the government,” he added.
The campaign is largely a result of Ontario’s developmental service system that “has been chronically underfunded for the past 30-years,” Dalgleish explained. “We have received a 7% increase to base operating cost over that timeframe.
“We have been doing more with less for 30-years, and this has been an ongoing message,” he said, noting at this point, “the sector is literally at a tipping point.”
Province-wide, there are 53,000 adults waiting for services across Ontario – 1000 of which are local – including for housing supports, staffing supports for community participation, respite, and employment services.
People may be able to ignore those 1000 individuals, but Dalgleish would like people to think of that differently. For every individual waiting, “there is a caregiver at home, who is burning out, who is forced to leave the workforce or accept reduced hours, who is isolated or financially strained as a result of those reduced hours.”
CLEC hears from many caregivers who struggle with their own physical and mental health, and are losing hope because they know it can be years – or even decades – before they get relief.
“What the result is, a complex and compounded societal impact; one where one unmet need creates two crises,” Dalgleish commented. “It is no longer simply a waitlist issue, this is a public health, economic, and social stability issue.”
For Dalgleish, the system is not eroding because it is failing, it is eroding because it is not being appropriately resourced.
“Agencies like ours are critical community infrastructure that keeps the most vulnerable people in our community safe, included, and gives them opportunities to lead meaningful lives, but the three-decades of funding erosion means we are suffering from chronic staffing shortages.”
In addition, families waiting for services are turning to the Emergency Room, shelters, or using the police for incidental engagement to help manage a particular situation.
Individuals with disabilities are facing increased vulnerability of crime, exploitation, and human trafficking, Dalgleish explained, adding there are growing risks of homelessness. Of those waiting for services, he said 28,000 are waiting for housing with supports.
Those preventative supports are disappearing.
“The lack of investment has the system completely on its heels and reactive, instead of proactive and plainly it falls on the shoulders of families, and realistically, on all taxpayers. They pay the price when the system fails, because the costs shift over to healthcare or mental health or policing or shelters.”
What developmental service providers are asking of the Province is to stabilize the system with predictable, ongoing funding. Specifically, they are asking for a 3% increase to the base budget for 2026 and 2027, and a 2% annual increase in the years that follow.
“Help us realize the promise of the Journey to Belonging,” Dalgleish said. The overall reform will be implemented by those agencies. “You can’t modernize a system that isn’t properly funded.”
They are raising the issue before the Province releases its 2026 Budget.
They are also advocating for the Provincial Government to address the nearly 30,000 individuals who are receiving the minimum allocation through the Ontario Passport Program funding, which is $5,500 per year.
He explained anytime anyone is deemed eligible for services, they are automatically allocated that funding. For 30,000 individuals, their assessed need is greater. So, they are also asking the Provincial Government to fully fund those individuals at their assessed rate.
“Ultimately, we live in a society that believes in inclusion and belonging. Belonging should not have a waiting list,” Dalgleish commented. “People with disabilities deserve a safe community to participate in, a safe home, a chance to work, the appropriate mental health supports, the ability to form relationships, and have dignity and have a life they choose.”
Caregivers, he added, are the “invisible backbone holding everything together, and have been for decades.”
Families are exhausted and can’t keep doing it. They are terrified about the future and what is going to happen when they are sick or not there, he relayed.