HALDIMAND—Community Living Ontario (CLO) is sounding the alarm as the support services waitlist for people with developmental disabilities continues to balloon. With 52,000 people across Ontario on the list, including 216 in Haldimand Norfolk, CLO is calling for an increased budget from the provincial government to bring that number down.
“It should not be at the whim of any government to determine who gets, who doesn’t, and when,” said CLO CEO Chris Beesley in a press release. “The province’s books should not be balanced on the backs of its most vulnerable citizens. While we are grateful the government provided a modest increase in the last budget, it doesn’t even begin to address the seriousness of our current situation. We must do better.”
Currently in Ontario, more than 28,000 people are waiting for housing-related support, while 42,000 wait for community support services, such as staff support, caregiver respite, and employment and mental health services.
The Financial Accountability Office of Ontario (FAO) reported a 5% decrease in the number of people the provincial system is housing, while that waitlist has grown by 55% since 2018. It also notes that Ontario has increased funding to core support agencies by less than 7% since 1993, while the cost of living in that time has increased by over 60%.
The Press spoke with Bob Butella, CEO of Community Living Haldimand (CLH), for a local perspective on this provincial issue.
According to Butella, government support for agencies like theirs changed dramatically around 2015, the last time “expansion dollars” were offered to handle waitlists in a specific region.
The current local waitlist includes services like group homes, host families, community participation services, and supported independent living.
“It’s kind of what it sounds like, finding ways for people to get connected with their community,” said Butella.
He also touched on the provincial Passport Funding system, which provides financial support between $5,500 to $45,000 per year depending on the assessed level of need (the average received is $11,000).
“It was designed to give people with disabilities money in their own pocket so they could purchase the types of supports they wanted to get,” said Butella. An assessment is done first to evaluate the client’s strengths and support needs. “They’re given a score and that score then determines how much funding they can get.”
According to CLO, over 30,000 Ontarians currently aren’t receiving the full determined amount through Passport.
“If people want to buy a day program, most of the organizations are done on a one-to-one staffing and are charging out at over $40 an hour. If you get $5,500 it’s not going to be able to buy a lot of help,” explained Butella.
He feels the provincial government does not grasp the severity of the situation: “Just because you’re eligible doesn’t mean you’re going to get service. I think there are times when we’ve talked to politicians, and they didn’t realize there was an issue.”
He noted it’s tough to compete for funding when the need for increased funding is seen across many sectors.
“There’s probably six other press releases going out today about homelessness and encampments, and all kinds of things. It kind of gets lost in the clutter,” said Butella.
He added that the government is open to working with CLO to find more ways to help people connect to their communities, with a goal of reducing reliance on organizations like theirs: “They think they can solve some of it just by changing approaches and changing attitudes.”
To that end, CLH is working to establish a family engagement committee, to be run by families close to the issue with CLH support, but not oversight.
“We know that by supporting a family group, they can do some advocacy and we can point them in the right direction as well as connect them with over 100 family groups across the province … so there’s a louder voice,” said Butella.
Through this, Butella hopes families can find new opportunities for mutual support.
“There’s a lot of people who don’t know anyone else going through the same thing and that’s quite helpful,” he said.
Additionally, he wants to increase partnerships with schools “to help prepare students better when they’re done high school, whether it’s more co-op opportunities, that type of thing, so maybe they have better job skills.”
Butella hopes that all with a stake in developmental support services will take the time to fill out a provincial survey aimed at finding out what Ontarians want to see a focus on in 2025; it can be found online at
ontario.ca/form/survey-2025-budget-consultations.
“We’re asking people connected with us to please fill that out,” he concluded. “People that work for us, people that are supported by us, families of people on the waiting list, to make sure that the government knows it’s a priority.”
