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Goetschel finds help at WGCIL

Agency works to help those with disabilities live independently

By Heidi Terry-Litchfield
Herald Writer

Friday, April 25, 2008 2:53 PM CDT
JOLIET - Angela Goetschel of Minooka never thought while growing up that she would one day find herself disabled, divorced, and fighting for her rights.

She came out of a 27-day coma in 2002, after having seven major surgeries and suffering from three muscular disorders, including Mus-cle Atrophy.

She has three spinal injuries, two of which are major and hamper her ability to turn her head freely if she hasn't stretched.

She has an ACL tear in one knee and has suffered with pain for the last six years before recently finding a shot that helped relieve it.

She said that, while she was going through the difficulty of diagnosis and surgery after surgery, her husband left - leaving her to face the disability alone.

“I don't look disabled and many people, including my own family, didn't believe me at first,” said Goetschel.

Goetschel said she originally went to agencies in DuPage County, where she lived, but didn't find much in the way of help for her disability. After that, she wasn't sure where to turn.

“I remembered my grandmother had lived in Shady Oaks when I was a child and I thought I could look into that for myself. I couldn't afford to live in Downers Grove any longer,” she said.

She bought a two-bedroom mobile home and lives alone with the assistance of a personal assistant who helps her with day-to-day needs she can't do on her own.

“I wouldn't change anything that has happened to me,” she said. “I have learned a lot and am a much stronger person today because of those things.”

After moving to Minooka, she contacted Will-Grundy Center for Independent Living to see if she could get assistance with a few things. It was then that she found out about their Legislative Internship Classes and signed up.

“I lost some of my memory from the coma, but I have a gift for retaining the law I read, so I thought why not use it,” said Goetschel.

“The checks and balances of the law haven't always worked in my life. Every part of my life the law has failed me. I want to change that; justice has to be seen at a public level.

“I think about other people, people worse off than me. I worry about those people and I want to make a difference.”

She received a certificate from the Legislative Internship Classes, where she was one of 12 adults in the program.

She will be heading to Springfield for the 24th annual Disability Rights/Independent Living Conference next week. Participants will march to the Capitol and hold a legislative rally day, as well as go to workshops and meet others in the state with the same goals.

Will-Grundy Center for Independent Living is located in Joliet, but it services people in both Will and Grundy counties.

In fiscal year 2006-2007, it serviced 4,113 people with a staff of only 13, including Executive Director Pam Heavens.

The center opened in 1989, and services any individual regardless of age with any disability.

Among the programs offered are Accessibility, Community Reintegration and Nursing Home Outreach, Deaf Services, Government Affairs, Seniors, Systems Advocacy, and Youth Advocacy.

Its core services are independent living skills training and enhancements, advocacy, and information and referral.

WGCIL offers specialized support service in community reintegration, special education liaison, financial education courses, sign language courses, Hispanic translation, fair housing, and support groups.

It recently expanded a Low-Vision Loan Program by offering a try-before-you-buy program for those residents who have experienced vision problems. The program was unveiled in July 2007, and is aimed at helping people save money and frustration while increasing their independence.

The center also can provide free amplified phones for qualified Illinois residents who are hard of hearing.

To contact WGCIL to see if it can assist you, call (815) 729-0162 (voice) or (815)729-2085 (TTY), or e-mail the center at wgcil@sbcglobal.net.

To get more information on services WGCIL provides, you may visit its Web site at Will-GrundyCIL.org.

Locals take home awards

November 18, 2007
By Robyn Monaghan Special to the Herald News

JOLIET -- Charles Fuqua, a 63-year-old man deprived of his voting rights while in a nursing home, won the annual award for excellence in independent living.

"I'd like to thank everyone who told me I could do it," said Fuqua, who was featured in a recent Herald News story about a statewide campaign against institutionalizing people with disabilities.

Fuqua overcame his battle with polio to live independently and become an advocate for disabled rights with the Will-Grundy Center for Independent Living and the facilitator of a weekly men's support group.

Fuqua was among those honored Wednesday at the center's annual awards presentation. This year, the center filled a record 100,000 requests for information and services, helped four people leave nursing homes for independent living, and arranged to have a telephone system for deaf citizens, said Denise Winfrey, outgoing board president.

She is succeeded by local business owner Val Rand.

"Joliet has always been a hotbed of advocacy,' said keynote speaker Rob Kilbury, director of the Illinois Department of Human Services Department of Rehabilitation.

Will County Recorder of Deeds Laurie McPhillips took the annual accessibility achievement award for her efforts to get computer software to make county records available to people with disabilities.

"We can't move forward just talking about it," McPhillips said.

Volunteer of the Year award went to Mike Lord, 52, Joliet, who answers phones and does clerical work at the center.

Group: Disabled 'locked away'

October 5, 2007
By Robyn Monaghan Special to the Herald News

After living on his own for decades despite being disabled by polio when he was 12, Charles Fuqua at 59 came out of a hospital stay with two options.

"They gave me two choices," the Joliet man said. "I could go into this nursing home or I could go into that one."

The three months he spent in a nursing home were the worst three months of life, Fuqua said. He was not allowed out of his wheelchair. He was denied his vote in the presidential election of 2004, he said, though the polling site was next door. He usually didn't have access to a telephone and when he did, he said he didn't have the opportunity to talk privately.

"I saw things in there I wish I never had," he said. "When people think of nursing homes, they think of the place senior citizens go to spend the rest of their lives. I saw young people with drug problems in their 20s, young people with disabilities -- people who didn't seem to belong there."

Joliet rally

The Campaign for Real Choice in Illinois staged Liberty Launch, an event in Joliet on Thursday, to bring public attention to what they say is Illinois' "unnecessary and wasteful" practice of institutionalizing thousands of people with disabilities. The Joliet rally is one of a series of rallies across Illinois to promote supports to help people with disabilities get the same personal and physical liberties all Americans enjoy.
"Imagine living in a place where you have no control over what happens to you. Imagine you can't leave," said Lester Pritchard, co-founder of the Campaign for Real Choice in Illinois. "Imagine having strangers control who shares your room, when you sleep, if and when you bathe, what you eat, what you wear, where you can go and when you can go there."

"How would that make you feel?" Pritchard asked. "Probably like you were in prison."

Illinois ranks nearly last among states in claiming federal funds for home- and community-based services for people with developmental disabilities and near the top of the list of those that use most of their money to keep disabled people in institutions.

Studies conducted over 20 years show people with disabilities are "better off in most ways when they leave large congregate care settings for community living in small, family-scale homes," according to the landmark Sobsey and Mansell study.

On the flip side, crime rates against people with disabilities are higher in institutions than in communities. Sobsey and Mansell concluded that the risk of being sexually abused is two to four times higher in an institutional setting than in community settings.

Community-based living is just the humane thing to do, said Pam Heavens, director of the Will-Grundy Center for Independent Living.

"Disabled people deserve the right to work, to have recreation, to volunteer, to be an active part of society, to give of their talents," Heavens said. "When we're locked away, society loses all these gifts we have to offer."

Institutions are not just bad medicine, Center for Independence advocates say. It's also bad business.

Institutional care costs nearly twice as much as home-based or community care. Yet Illinois' Medicaid expenditures are heavily slanted toward nursing home and institutional care. Last year, Illinois spent about $165,000 a year for each of its 2,707 state institution residents. Community care with round-the-clock support costs about $54,000 annually.

'False imprisonment'

Segregation makes those kept out of the public eye feel inferior, Pritchard said.
Fuqua, who studied engineering in college and worked as a security specialist for years while he could walk, is a smart and resourceful guy.

"I caused a disruption," he said of his time in the nursing home.

He bought a cell phone and he called a lawyer.

"I learned the phrase 'false imprisonment,'" he said.

He called the Will-Grundy Center for Independent Living and pulled a Will County Senior Services ombudsman onto his team. With their help, he proved he could bathe, cook and shop on his own. A cousin drove him to look at apartments.

Now 63, Fuqua lost his family home during his nursing home stay. But he has lived in his own apartment for three years. He is an advocate for disabled rights with the Center for Independent Living and facilitates a weekly men's group. They brainstorm solutions for keeping their liberty and independence.

"When you're in a bad situation, you panic. You can't think straight," Fuqua said. "When you're not in the situation, you can think of all types of solutions."

Making good food fast, accessible

September 10, 2007
By Robyn Monaghan Special to the Herald News

Millions of hungry burger buyers who cannot hear have no choice but to drive by the drive-through.

But for area fast food diners with a hearing impairment, the drive-though lane at Culver's in Romeoville no longer is a tempting road to nowhere.

Every day, one out of four Americans eats fast food, and more people get it from the drive-through window than from the counter. While almost everyone has pulled away without their complete order at least once, it's even more vexing for the 28 million Americans with a hearing impairment.

When only the drive-through lane of an eatery is open, that restaurant is effectively closed to a hard-of-hearing customer. For people who have difficulty getting around, simply entering a restaurant can be too tough a task to handle.

"As a deaf person, I have had problems ordering through the drive-in window at some fast-food restaurants," said Festus Fabilola, coordinator of deaf services for the Will-Grundy Center for Independent Living.

"A few times in the past, I have walked to the window of a nearby restaurant to order there because the main lobby was yet to open," he said.

At its restaurant at 485 N. Weber Road in Romeoville, Culver's has added two new features designed to give hearing-impaired and disabled people the same chance to indulge in butter burgers and frozen delicacies as everyone else.

OrderAssist allows deaf or hard-of-hearing customers to enter the drive-through, pull up to the order speaker, and touch the well-marked OrderAssist bell mounted there. The signal alerts workers that the driver would like to place an order with a printed menu at the pickup window. The OrderAssist program also is available inside the restaurant at the counter.

"Access for people who are deaf and/or visually impaired is equally important as access for folks with mobility disabilities," said Pam Heavens, director of the Will-Grundy Center for Independent Living. "Every improvement is a big help."

A BigBell button, an oversized button near the entrance marked with a wheelchair logo, calls workers to help a disabled person get through the door.

"We are determined to make the dining experience a happy one for everyone who visits," said Culver's owner Ron Dalrymple. "It's awesome to see the appreciation on the customer's face."

OrderAssist and BigBell are the brainchild of Chicago-based Inclusion Solutions, a company that designs and sells accessibility systems for millions of customers who can't navigate a heavy door, a raised threshold, a flight of steps, or an order system. It also markets accessibility tools for retail establishments, public buildings, election polling places and gas stations.

"Survey after survey indicates that a store that provides good service, including accessibility, gains incredible shopping loyalty from the customers who know that the store will do the simple things that make a shopping experience dignified and easy. It's a very sizable market," said Patrick Hughes Jr., president of Inclusion Solutions.

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