June 3, 2009 – St. John's growth called for the Human Services Department to add Disabilities and Rehabilitation Services to the island, program administrator Vernon Finch said Wednesday at a grand opening of the St. John program.
"St. John deserves its fair share of quality services," he said.
The program is located at the Human Services building across from the Fire Station. Its goal is to help people with physical or mental disabilities move into the job market.
For example, assistant program administrator Edna Duzant talked about the possibility of building a greenhouse on St. John to provide jobs for people who were difficult to place in regular jobs.
The program covers people with various kinds of disabilities including blindness. Felecia Blyden runs a Human Services program that provides help to older blind or visually impaired residents.
Her office has gathered a range of equipment to help its clients figure out which devices will help them the most. She said that for the client to buy each of them so they can try them out is cost prohibitive.
"This one helps you identify money. It helps you to be independent," she said, demonstrating a device that indicates the denominations on bills.
According to Blyden, the office hopes to work with a specialist in adaptive devices to eliminate the trial and error aspect of picking out the right equipment.
After Catherine Stephen, who works in Sen. Craig Barshinger's St. John office, asked about getting help for a woman who needs to make a trip off island but has a 26-year-old disabled son, Assistant Human Services Commissioner Michal Rhymer-Charles said the department provides assistance in these types of situations. She spoke about respite care, home care and temporary adult sitters as possible solutions.
St. John resident Alecia M. Wells asked about plans to build a senior facility on St. John, but Rhymer-Charles told her that while she understands the concerns, federal funding is not available to build it any time soon because federal Housing and Urban Development grants have "dried up."
"But I understand people want to age where they live. They don't want to go to St. Thomas or St. Croix," she said, referring to islands that have senior facilities.
Desiree Rogers of Work-Able Inc., a St. Thomas and St. Croix-based private program that helps disabled people prepare for work, outlined a summer program for youths 14 to 21. Yvonne Wells pointed out that it would cost too much for St. John youths to attend.
"We can assist," Finch said.
The assistance included bringing the applications to Human Services' St. John facility and providing transportation to St. Thomas.
Rhymer-Charles also addressed the ongoing issues with Human Services' main telephone number. It rings and rings with no answer. She said it was a dead switch, but the department is installing a new state-of-the-art telephone system. Meanwhile, people should call the commissioner's office at 774-5899 on St. Thomas or 778-6862 on St. Croix.
After listening to complaints about the shortage of Human Services' activities on St. John, Rhymer-Charles said the goal is improvement.
"It's a new day," she said.
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