Autism Ontario’s Marg Spoelstra was in Atlanta touring a national historic site dedicated to civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. last weekend when her Twitter account exploded.

Toronto Councillor Doug Ford was blaming a Rexdale group home for young adults with autism and other developmental disabilities for damaging property values and otherwise “ruining” the neighbourhood.

“It was one of those moments,” Spoelstra said Tuesday. “Here I was, standing at the site of so much history and realizing how much we have yet to do as a society.”

“It was shocking to me that someone would use those words to describe the situation, given how far we’ve come as a province, particularly in response to de-institutionalization,” she said.

De-institutionalization, Ontario’s policy of closing residential institutions for people with developmental disabilities and moving them into the community, dates back to the 1970s.

The last of those large institutions, Huronia Regional Centre in Orillia, closed in 2009. Last December, the provincial government settled a multi-million-dollar class-action lawsuit with several thousand former Huronia residents who suffered physical, emotional and sexual abuse at the hands of former staff and fellow residents.

“We all know what happens in any institutional setting when you treat people as a group rather than individuals. Things start to happen and things are hidden, and then we worry,” Spoelstra said.

“But in the community, where we are more public, when we have that conversation with our neighbours, people are actually safer. We know this,” she added.

“We need places like this home,” she said. “As a society we need to understand that everyone has a right to be in communities and we have to be better neighbours.”

Chris Beesley, head of Community Living Ontario, had a similar reaction when he heard Ford’s comments about the Rexdale-area home run by the Griffin Centre.

“I asked my wife, is it 2014 or 1914?” he said. “This seems to be such a step backwards.”

Beesley’s provincial organization serves about 12,000 developmentally disabled Ontarians, including about 9,000 in group homes.

“If you believe that people with an intellectual disability have the right to be citizens of their community, then this is a model you support,” he said. “To say group homes are disruptive to the community, that the people there aren’t supervised properly, that there is higher crime, lower property values — there is just nothing there to support it.”

The provincial Liberals were poised to spend an unprecedented $810 million over three years in their spring budget to end wait lists for 21,000 children and adults seeking developmental services to help them live fuller lives in the community. The money would have also provided residential care for 1,400 in urgent need, such as the child of an Ottawa mother in crisis who threatened to abandon her 20-year-old daughter at Queen’s Park Tuesday.

Instead of allowing a misguided local politician to inflame a community against these supports, voters should be asking provincial candidates if they are prepared to make a similar investment in developmental services should they get elected, Beelsey said.

“We need to end the wait for people who desperately require supports and services,” he said. “We need to move from a crisis model to one of prevention.”

Four separate initiatives have been examining Ontario’s failure to adequately serve this vulnerable population over the past year, including the provincial auditor general, provincial ombudsman, a panel of medical experts and a Queen’s Park committee on developmental services.

The political momentum must continue, Beelsey said. The organization is mobilizing support at #endthewait.

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Like Spoelstra, Beesley doesn’t believe Ford’s views are widespread among politicians or voters.

“We are hopeful this unfortunate incident opens up a conversation across the province around what communities and our political leaders can do to support people with (Autism Spectrum Disorders) in respectful, knowledgeable and meaningful ways,” Spoelstra said in a news release Tuesday.

“Given the strong community support for the closing of our province’s institutions based on good evidence and human rights, we feel confident that the value of living with the right community supports in local settings will be the predominant theme.”

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