If a country is judged on how it treats its weakest citizens...

Social Opportunity Journal.

Two gentlemen live in the duplex behind ours. Mike is a single, older man with a physical disability that manifests physiologically with a lurching gait and slurred speech, and mentally with sever paranoia. His neighbor, Laddie, is 68 years old and has cerebral palsy. Laddie drives a red scooter 4 blocks from his house to Fred Meyers and back, stopping by my house on occasion to banter politics, though we are both staunch democrats. Laddie's speech is impaired and his condition has deteriorated over time, so that now he has trouble grasping small objects and is unable to fully extend his arms and hands. His house is retrofitted with handles and bars on the walls so he can grab onto them and maneuver down the hallway. A pole in his kitchen braced between the floor and ceiling, allows him to grab it and swivel around, and he uses a walker and rolling chair to get around inside.

Joy comes over in her minivan almost every day to take Laddie to doctor's appointments, manage his social work visits, and help around the house. Laddie met Joy on the bus a few years ago and somehow convinced her to get into home health care. On his urging, she became his home health care provider and has been his advocate ever since. He seems to have a team of doctors and social entities provided through the government to help him get by on social security, but he's definitely seen better days. Just this year, his regular dentist of the past 8 years died or retired, and a new doctor in the office took a look at Laddie's decrepit mouth. For the past 8 years, he's been suffering from a painful mouth infection that has systemically affected his health. The old doctor told him he'd just have to live with it. Laddie's new doctor took one look in his mouth, gave him a thorough cleaning, and told Laddie he'd have to start flossing or he could die of the infection. In about 2 weeks Laddie was a changed man, to the point that he asked me to come over to his house so he could show me the pictures of the disease in his mouth - so he could warn me about the dangers of not flossing. He asked me to warn my husband too, and I promised I would carry the message.

Before the Bush administration he was an advocate for the disabled. On his wall is a picture of Ted Kulongoski with Laddie smiling proudly. In his past, Laddie used to give police presentations on the best way to interact with people with disabilities. With the Bush administration came cuts to human services, and Laddie lost a lot of funding, and a lot of hope. A committed political watch dog and commentator, Laddie and I had a lot of over the fence conversations and commiserations about the Bush Administration, and we were both thrilled when Obama took the White House. But in the economic climate of the new American Era, Laddie's livelihood, at a very basic level, is threatened. The combined Federal and State budget crises threatens to eliminate or severely reduce Joy's funding. If she loses her job, or is forced to cut hours, how will she make ends meet, and an even more important question - how will Laddie manage?

The silver lining in all of this is Laddie - he is a dynamic, commanding personality who was able to recruit a home health care worker that he trusts, and endear a neighbor who is now challenged to think of a way help him continue to get the care he needs. This is a huge opportunity for a social solution, how to do it is the question....