By: Andrew Palamarchuk- Mississauga News.
Living with cerebral palsy made school a daily struggle for Ritchie Baumel. “I had people picking on me all the time … so you couldn’t concentrate on doing your schoolwork. You couldn’t concentrate on doing anything,” he said. “It wasn’t a very good experience for me.” In May 1982, at age 19, Baumel moved into a Mississauga care home that would become his sanctuary. And 43 years later, he’s still there.
The care home — Peel Cheshire Homes Streetsville, affectionately known as Cheshire House, at 361 Queen St. S. — houses 10 adults with physical disabilities and acquired brain injuries. As the facility celebrates its 50th anniversary this week, Baumel reflects on the friendships he’s made there. “It just feels like home,” he said in an interview. “It’s given me a lot of support (and) friendships.”
Cheshire House provides 24-hour care through a team of personal support workers (PSWs) while also encouraging independence.
Baumel, now 62, goes to the gym twice a week, has a part-time job as an usher/ticket taker at a Brampton arena and regularly visits his 96-year-old mother at a Brampton retirement home. He said Cheshire House has had a positive impact throughout his years there. “It’s a safe place for people to live and be happy.”
Cheshire House was officially incorporated as a non-profit on May 16, 1975, and the first resident moved in a year later. Executive director Teresa Waldner said the property was a 70-year-old farmhouse when it was purchased in 1975, adding former Mississauga mayor Hazel McCallion, who was a councillor at the time, became a “huge proponent” of opening the facility. “She faced some NIMBY (not in my backyard) people within the neighbourhood that thought that the presence of a house for disabled people might bring down the neighbourhood, and she fought that tooth and nail and became one of our biggest advocates,” said Waldner, noting the facility was named after the Cheshire movement, founded by philanthropist Leonard Cheshire, who attended the opening. Waldner said the movement focuses on giving care to people with disabilities while also maintaining their independence to the utmost. “We are proud to carry on that philosophy, but we are not necessarily affiliated with any other Cheshire home,” Waldner said.
In the early days, Cheshire House was more of an independent living house that provided some support. “But as you can see, people have lived here for years and years, and their needs changed,” Waldner said in an interview at the facility. “We’re meeting people’s needs as they change, so each person has a care plan unique to them, unique to their needs.” Waldner said Cheshire House allows its residents to age in place. “We now have training for our staff that leads right up to end-of-life training so that nobody, unless they wish, needs to leave here.”
Frank Walker, 76, has lived at Cheshire House the longest, having moved in on Feb. 7, 1977. He was badly hurt in a car crash when he was 22. “I was coming home from the old Greenwood racetrack,” he said. “I was a passenger. My girlfriend was driving.”
Walker suffered a brain injury and was in a coma for an extended period following the crash. “After I got out of the coma, I needed help communicating and with mobility,” he said. Walker, who uses a wheelchair, not only lives at Cheshire House, but has an important role in its upkeep. He helps maintain the backyard. “I like keeping this place neat and tidy,” he said.
At age 87, Giuseppina Radovini is Cheshire House’s matriarch and oldest resident. She, too, was a victim of a car crash. The accident, which happened in June 1966, took the lives of her son and brother-in-law.
Radovini said she was in a coma for two months after the crash. She lived in a long-term-care home before moving to Cheshire House on March 15, 1979. “This place is the key to heaven,” she said of the facility.
Panzie Flemming, who has been a PSW at Cheshire House for the past 22 years, suggested the level of care has increased over the years as the residents got older.
“When I started, Giuseppina wasn’t in a wheelchair. She was walking with a cane,” she said, noting “we’re like a family.”
PSWs run the day-to-day operations of the house; two PSWs are on site 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily while one works overnights. Waldner said Cheshire House is funded by the Ministry of Health for staffing and some other basic needs but not for needed repairs and upgrades to the aging facility. It recently held an online auction as a fundraiser.
Waldner stressed the facility is not an institution but a home for those requiring different levels of care.
“Some people go to day programs outside the house, so we’re packing them lunches. We’re accommodating whatever their needs are,” she said. “No one plans to live in an assisted living setting, but we try to keep in mind that an assisted living space should feel like your home and that your value as an individual matters.”
Cheshire House is at capacity. “We are always full,” Waldner said. “We have a waitlist because people just don’t tend to want to leave.”
In order to get on the waitlist, Waldner said, people need to apply via partner non-profit organization Mind Forward, which also supports adults affected by acquired brain injuries and assists in the intake process for Cheshire House.