Working during the pandemic: on helping others transition out of congregate care, Orange County, CA
Photographs by Nolan Ryan Trowe
Larry Wanger, Marquita Facen, and Megan Granata — all members of the disability community — work at the Dayle McIntosh Center, a center for independent living that supports people with disabilities. During the pandemic, they have been helping individuals with disabilities move out of institutions where Covid-19 rates have been high and into lower risk environments.
Larry: I became the executive director at the Dayle McIntosh Center, which is a non-profit that helps support people with disabilities to live independently and inclusively in the community. I started this role on March 2. Within two weeks, we shut down in-person operations because of the pandemic. Some of my coworkers I’ve only met once. Some I’ve never met in person.
When this crisis hit, one of the biggest things the people who we work with were dealing with was food insecurity. Overnight, people weren’t able to go to the grocery store because of their health risks. They didn’t have the technology that they would need to access the internet. They couldn’t order groceries. They might have a cell phone, but it may not be a smartphone. People struggled to cover things financially because they or someone in their household lost a job. Some didn’t have safe transportation. We responded to all of those things, and formed some amazing partnerships with other organizations in the community to do it.
Marquita: As a transition specialist, I’m in charge of the hands-on work of helping people in institutions like nursing homes move back into the community. We can’t go inside because of Covid, so communication is hard. Most people don’t have access to the internet or even a personal cell phone. Just getting that first phone call is hard. Getting a piece of paper signed can be even harder, and transitioning requires so much paperwork. I use humor a lot to break the ice because to make this process work, we have to get into intimate details of their lives. I want them to feel comfortable sharing things with me, even if it’s just, ‘I need to take this a little slower,’ or, ‘I’m scared.’
I have been getting more calls lately. Sometimes it’s not even from people needing transition services. They just want to talk. They’ll ask, How is your day going? I tell them, my day is fantastic since you called me! They’re so isolated in the facility now. They can’t even get a visit. So I tell them, my phone is always on.
Megan: The work feels so important now, but it’s also really hard because we can’t be there in person. The vast majority of my team are people with disabilities. Normally we’d be out there in a heartbeat. With groceries. With social support. But I have to keep my team safe.
This pandemic has made people with disabilities more visible. We’re high risk, we’re having to quarantine, we’re speaking out about discriminatory triage practices. I have felt so personally devalued by this whole quarantine and pandemic experience.
I and the people I care about are the reason why you wear a mask. To see people choosing not to wear a mask feels like they don’t see our lives as valuable. I want people to be willing to engage with the disability community, willing to learn from us, and willing to see our lives as valuable because they are. That’s what I want, and that’s what our community needs.
