The $50,000 additional funding that Durango-based Southwest Center for Independence received from the state general fund last year is increasing to $72,000 starting July 1.
“It’s gratifying to see that independent living is recognized in Colorado as ensuring that people with disabilities have options,” said agency executive director Martha Mason on Tuesday. “The 2014-15 allocation will be ongoing.”
The area’s state legislators – Sen. Ellen Roberts and Reps. Michael McLachlan and Don Coram – supported the funding, she said.
The 2013-14 allocation was specifically to get people out of nursing homes, Mason said. Most people in nursing homes don’t need around-the-clock care, she said.
Mason used the money to increase staffing and open an office in Cortez in order to make services more widely available.
The nonprofit promotes independent living and offers disability-specific peer support, teaches skills for living on one’s own, orients users who can benefit from high-tech devices, provides information and referral data and offers individual counseling.
Jenny Tolbert, 55, who suffered a traumatic brain injury in a vehicle accident 30 years ago, can’t praise the center enough.
“I was in the hospital for a year, then just stumbled around for 27 years,” Tolbert said. “When I saw a flier from the Southwest Center for Independence about a support group for people with TBI (traumatic brain injury), I thought ‘There can’t be another person with the same problem as mine.’”
But indeed there are many, she discovered. Support-group meetings can bring together 30 people, which is the tip of the iceberg, she said.
“The return of military veterans is going to increase the need for TBI support services,” Tolbert said. “The center has changed my life so much.”
The state funding this year specifies no particular goal, Mason said.
The Southwest Center for Independence opened in 1990 La Plata, Archuleta, Dolores, Montezuma and San Juan counties. Census figures place the number of people with disabilities in the region at slightly more than 12,000.
The 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act pointed to the isolation and segregation that people with disabilities experience as a serious and pervasive form of discrimination, Mason said.
“We define independent living as deciding one’s own pattern of life regarding food, friends and activities,” Mason said. “We believe that people with disabilities know more about what they need than does the government.”
In excess of half her staff and half of the center’s board members themselves have disabilities, Mason said.
Mason said her office transfers a half-dozen people a year from nursing homes to their own quarters.
The center is moving from the West Building in downtown Durango to more spacious quarters at 3473 Main Ave., Suite 23. The telephone number remains 259-1672.
An open house at the new office is scheduled Monday starting at 3 p.m.
daler@durangoherald.com
