- Target:
- Quinetta Wade, Deputy Director, Illinois Department of Human Services
- Region:
- United States of America
- Website:
- SICIL1.org
Elderly people with blindness or low vision, some our most vulnerable citizens in southern Illinois, have been stripped of their services that have been in place for the past 20 years.
We should all be concerned, because the loss of this funding means that elderly blind people in this entire region will no longer be served by any agency. People who have become suddenly blind due to natural causes or disease will no longer receive in-home support and training in how to cope with losing their sight. Those with long-term visual impairments will no longer have someone who will travel to their homes in rural counties to bring them items that magnify, light, or read vital information to them. There will be no one to teach them how to use their equipment, read their medications, pay their bills, or cook their meals.
The people served by this program have spent their lives working and paying taxes. Where will they find help now that this program is gone? The elderly blind in southern Illinois should not be deprived of services that restore some of the independence that the rest of us take for granted.
The Southern Illinois Center for Independent Living (SICIL) has provided these services to hundreds of people since 1997.
We, the undersigned, call on the Illinois Department of Human Services to restore the funding for the Elderly Blind/Low Vision Program at SICIL to the nine southern-most counties of Illinois.
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The Restore the Elderly Blind Program for southern Illinois petition to Quinetta Wade, Deputy Director, Illinois Department of Human Services was written by Karen Reeder and is in the category Miscellaneous at GoPetition.