ADAPT program for people with disabilities seeks support from Region of York

Yorkregion.com
Jan. 7, 2015
By Lisa Queen

With his non-profit organization for seniors and people with disabilities facing financial ruin, Jim Knox is hoping York Region’s new chairperson and council will find it in their hearts to support his group so it can continue providing transportation services for some of the region’s most vulnerable residents.

“Who will look after them?” said Knox, the founding president of the Association for Differently Abled People Together (ADAPT), which he established 38 years ago.

“Do you have a senior in your family? Do you have a senior who is sick? Wouldn’t it be nice if they knew or you knew they were taken care of?”

Regional chairperson Wayne Emmerson has vowed to find ways to work with Knox, including inviting him to make a presentation at an upcoming accessibility committee meeting, but stopped short of promising any funding.

“I don’t believe, unless I see more information, I don’t believe we have the funding to help him, but I need to know a little bit more,” he told York Region Media Group Tuesday, a day after he spoke by phone with Knox.

“I’m willing to listen and to see what we can do to help some of these people he’s helping... He’s providing a service, a very good service, to people who need it.”

While ADAPT provides counselling, advocacy and social activities, by far its largest role is driving the region’s elderly, veterans, people in wheelchairs and using walkers, patients with chronic illnesses and others to medical appointments, shopping trips, social engagements and other destinations.

York Region runs Mobility Plus for the same type of clientele, leading Emmerson to suggest it’s unlikely council would bankroll a parallel service.

But Knox argued ADAPT provides a much more supportive service.

For example, Mobility Plus refuses to accept clients who are late for pick up three times, but it can be difficult to predict in advance when a medical appointment will finish, he said.

“A lot of our clients could be transported by regional transit but there are too many restrictions and hoops they have to jump through,” Knox said.

Meanwhile, ADAPT will drive clients anywhere in Ontario, meaning passengers don’t have to worry about municipal boundaries if they need to visit a hospital in Toronto or family in Barrie, for example.

ADAPT also provides dozens of extra niceties to its clients that Mobility Plus doesn’t, Knox said.

“Wayne (Emmerson) says we give the gold standard. The only reason we give the gold standard is because we believe (our clients) deserve it,” he said.

Faced with costs such as fuel, maintenance and repairs, insurance and annual government inspections, ADAPT ran a deficit of about $27,000 last year and a deficit of about $25,000 the year before, Knox said.

The mounting debt is despite raising more than $300,000 a year from the community, including generous contributions over the years from local business people such as Frank Stronach, Dave Wood and Ole Madsen, he said.

Knox, who has contributed more than $30,000 of his own money, is finding it difficult to continue fundraising after being diagnosed with cancer.

Knox, who served with the Royal Canadian Air Force, also suffers from many other health concerns, such as arthritis, glaucoma, angina, heart problems and decompression of the spine, which have left him needing a walker and wheelchair.

He was advised by ADAPT’s CEO to shut down the organization by the end of last year, but said he is determined to keep it going to ensure his vulnerable clients get the service they deserve.

“It’s got to be saved, I believe. I hate the thought of having to close the doors and walk away,” he said.

“I hate the thought because of the people involved, people who rely on us to do what they do.”

Knox has spent years attempting to get funding for ADAPT from different levels of government, but said his pleas have fallen on deaf ears.

But after talking on the phone Monday to Emmerson, he finally sees a glimmer of hope, although he’s trying not to get his hopes up.

“He’s the first politician that I’ve talked to in 50 years or more who really understands. I know he’s caught between a rock and a hard place. I said to him, ‘I know your hands are tied’, but no other level of government is willing to sit down and work something out,” he said.

“He’s more receptive. He’s the first politician that didn’t come out with all kinds of flowery bits and pieces and talk out of both sides of his mouth at the same time, knowing full well he’s not going to do anything, but, geez, he’ll look into it. He is the first one I’ve believed.”