Sad Day Bad Decisions

Our agency my agency invested money in upgrading their office, and the only question I have is how does that improve the lives of people with developmental disabilities. So what are the choices bricks and mortar do no not have to be done to perform that administrative functions that need to be done. Other agencies such as Neighbours do these same functions with much less overhead. It is so sad to me that an agency I have devoted so much time to...so what do I do quit? Quit on the people who look to me for support? Make a stand on principle that hurts the people who I'm trying to take the stand for? So often human service organizations have made poor decisions about how to use money. Here we go again.
Among agencies the real current dispute beyond the fact that institutions are horrible is the argument about group living arrangements such as group homes are any better? To not live with who you want or where you want is rob someone of something very basic. People can get hurt by those they live with in any situation but to not have chosen that situation is so much worse. Now in the field there are many consultants who make a pretty penny coming around to talk about the work they do. Most of them chug in and chug out and they don't have to take any responsibility for what they advocate. Those agencies that those agencies that have managed to convert their group homes into a place where their choice of home, job and relationship are more strongly enabled (I think a lot of agencies and their staff want this but only a few agencies, Hope House, Jeff Strul's agency, Greater Chesapeake Arc and that one up in New York have done it successfully) did through fortitude, desire and sacrifice. They also had to increase revenues but they also gave up some things and they also maybe did at a time when it might have been a little more flexible with the rules, but they pushed through. My agency though its not number one priority it's a competing priority something that would be nice not the end of the world. Because most of the folks don't see how folks suffer, how their dreams fail a little bit at a time, because in public it's all hidden behind we are family bs. I'll never forget one person we supported who was called an angel by the administrative staff a nice gesture but they wanted to make her an angel and she wasn't and honestly she was a more interesting person for not being an angel and not trying to live up to what people wanted of her.

In residential we go all the time the job never stops you take home with you in the form of your cell phone your memories, your thoughts it becomes part of your life and maybe because we answer all those calls take care of all the problems while others are sleeping we make okay for them to look the other way. Maybe a lot of life is that way.