Our Vision Statement: Disability Rights California will create individual and family supports, chosen and directed by the person with a disability

The Sacramento Bee

November 23, 2008

Disabled couple see independence intertwined with will to live

By Kevin Terrell and Beverly Evans-Terrell

Kevin Terrell and Beverly Evans-Terrell are married. They live in an apartment in the Country Club neighborhood of suburban Sacramento. They have both been disabled since birth and depend on services provided through the state to remain independent and live outside of nursing homes.

Kevin Terrell

I grew up in a nursing home in Southern California. Nursing homes are a zoo.

You live with at least 50 other people and you have 50 people working in various positions. I don't like them.I am the king of claustrophobia. I need my space. I need my privacy. I will not go back to a nursing home without a fight. It's not going to happen.

I depend on SSI for my income and Medi-Cal for my health care. I need help maintaining my rolling gurney. They used to come and pick it up and take it for repairs, but they won't do that anymore. I have to arrange to get it to the shop. If they stopped paying for repairs I wouldn't be able to get around at all.

If nursing homes cost so much, why is California trying to cut these programs that do their best to keep us out of nursing homes? That is what I would like to know.

Beverly Evans-Terrell

I was born with spina bifida. I was raised at home until I was 13 and then I lived in Sonoma State Hospital. When I was 24 I asked to be placed in a place where they would teach us to be somewhat independent. Now I live on my own, with Kevin.

I am able to work four hours a day, two days a week at a music store that sells used CDs. We buff the CDs in a machine and check for holes and big scratches. It's a lot of work and not a lot of money, but I enjoy it.

We depend on SSI for the bulk of our monthly income and if that gets cut we are up a creek without a paddle. We get $833 a month. We use Medi-Cal for our health care and dentist. Medi-Cal also pays for most of my medical supplies. Without my incontinence supplies there would be a mess around here. We have four attendants who work in shifts from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. and on weekends.

If we have to go back to nursing homes we will lose the will to live. Living on my own I have the responsibility to take care of myself. I'm free from dictators. I can go anywhere I want to go. I can go to bed when I want to.

It just means I don't have people telling me to do this, do that, do this,do that. I have the decision whether I want to do it or not.

When I lived in nursing homes there was a mentality, people were always telling me what I could not do, that I could not live on my own.

We make decisions for ourselves. We have support teams that help us, but we still make our choices, whether they are right or wrong.