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As we all know, Illinois is 47th in UCP’s annual ranking of how well the states are serving people with I/DD. Missouri is 8th!This is Jim’s story. . . .

First, Jim has an amazing mom, Brenda Page, whom I knew years ago in TASH (The Assn. for Persons with Severe Handicaps). Brenda has moved all over central Illinois looking for better programs for Jim. They started out in Charleston, then moved to Bloomington when Jim was 6 so he could enroll in an integrated school program. Brenda met and married her second husband Roger there. They subsequently lived in Galesburg and Champaign but had to battle in both places to get integrated high school programs. Along the way, Brenda picked up a Ph.D, and she specializes in Special Education.

When Jim was 26, they moved back to Bloomington. “In the back of my mind,” Brenda said, “we were always thinking about what would happen if something happened to both of us, or me especially. But there was nothing in adult community living for Jim. It was so hard to believe Bloomington had nothing to offer. Agencies suggested checking into faraway Illinois places, and even those places were not welcoming, and were large, segregated facilities.”

Eventually, after Roger retired from his company, they returned to eastern Illinois, and in 2015 they obtained DHS funding so Jim could move into an 8-person CILA. “Jim thought it was something he would like,” said Brenda, “but he soon realized it was not home and they were not very supportive, and he cried to come home. We searched and searched across the state for months for a more supportive, inclusive living situation.”

They finally found an agency in central Illinois that agreed to move Jim into a 3-person CILA, and Brenda and Roger moved to a home nearby. “They promised a 1-1 aide so he could be out in the community going where he’d like to go every day, Monday through Friday. But when he moved in, that immediately fell through. They reneged on all their promises. Jim went everywhere when he was home 41 years with us. He had social connections, people knew him. It was breaking my heart to see that disappearing. At times Jim looked so sad. I feel like his eyes were pleading with me to take him home.

“So after a few months, I was again online searching for other options, but agencies just wouldn’t consider the stomach tube. I didn’t know how we were going to survive this. My sister lived in Columbia, MO, and my aging parents had moved there, and she started encouraging me to come there. Of course, Jim needed to become a Missouri resident before we could even apply for services. So after much thought, we took the plunge and moved in July of 2016, knowing we had no guarantee of services.”

Jim initially moved into a nursing home temporarily. “To be able to live with that decision, we drove 15 miles every day for four months to pick him up at noon, and 15 miles back in the evening. It was a long four months.” Finally, the DD funding came through, and Jim was able to move into a 2-person home run by Boone Supported Living. He has 1-1 and is able to go out during both the day shift and the evening shift, although it took them awhile to get that going. (Check out his Facebook page for a flavor of his activity – https://www.facebook.com/jim.waldrip.92?fref=pb&hc_location=friends_tab)

“Jim is by far in the best place he has ever been,” Brenda said. “What Jim is able to do now would never have happened in Illinois.”