Over the past few years, the following two issues have emerged and demanded our attention:
Growing older is something that we all will go through, but when it happens to someone with developmental disabilities there are additional challenges to address. With advances in medicine and the type of supports provided, people with developmental disabilities are living longer than ever before, and in some cases, past what was considered to be their life-expectancy. Aging is a new frontier for their families and their care-providers to navigate. Learn more here.
Many of the people we work with are at the lower end of the economic spectrum, and at times it is a struggle for them to meet their expenses for basic personal needs, housing, transportation and medical/dental care. In 2012, we created the Langley Emergency Economic Assistance Program (LEEAP) to provide these folks with temporary assistance when they are in a financial crisis, enabling them to continue to remain as self-sufficient as possible.
Through the overwhelming generosity of many wonderful organizations and individuals, we were able to begin to distribute emergency assistance funding in January 2012. Since then, we have provided tens of thousands of dollars in emergency assistance to people who desperately needed a safety net.
The majority of the people we serve are in their forties and fifties. As they get older, we anticipate the need for a financial safety net to grow for the following reasons:
1) An unfortunate fact of life is that certain skills/abilities regress as we age. For people with developmental disabilities who already had a limited earning potential, a decline in their ability to perform tasks required in their jobs can have a devastating effect on their income.
2) Medical expenses - and health care costs in general - typically increase as people age.
3) In many cases, the primary sources of financial support to these individuals - their parents - are unable to provide assistance at the same level they had in the past (or perhaps not at all) because they are facing financial challenges themselves due to aging or they have passed away.
You can help us continue to provide a financial safety net to the individuals in our program by making a donation to Langley Residential Support Services and designating it to be used towards "LEEAP" (Langley Emergency Economic Assistance Program).