Weekly IA Newsletter
Resources and Updates from
Independence Associates
With the wind howling outside, we hope that everyone is staying safe and warm!

We at IA also wish you all a happy Easter and Passover!

We know many people are still struggling. If you need anything at all, please reach out to IA or your skills trainer and ask. If we don't know the answer, we'll try to find the person that does!

We will always help you as best we can.
Independence Associates Social Events!
We had such a great time last week getting together over zoom with our consumers! We are all excited to keep the events going every week!
Thank you so much for adding to the fun!

All are welcome, though some events are suggested for youth while others are for 22+! Stop on by and say hello!

Email social@iacil.org to RSVP or ask any questions.
  • IA Games Group: Wednesday, April 15th at 3:30PM (22 & younger)
  • What's more fun than our favorite party game Jackbox? You'll need a computer/phone for this one, but we always have a blast! Want to sign up or need tech support? Email social@iacil.org.
  • Parents/Adult Social Group: Friday, April 17th at 11AM (adults)
  • This group is available to parents and adults to discuss anything relevant to their lives during this crisis. Whether it parenting techniques, work-from-home ideas, or navigating the minefields of benefits - anything is up for discussion. Olga and Christina are both parents and will help lead this group and facilitate conversation. In these stressful times, having a support system is very important. For information on joining this video chat group and free tech support to set it up, email social@iacil.org.
  • Youth Social Events: Friday, April 17th at 3:30PM (22 & younger)
  • Last week, the IA youth had a great time showing off some painting and arts and crafts! From homemade Easter baskets to painting miniatures for Warhammer. We're hoping to make this weeks get together even better! Come hang out with IA! To sign up or for help setting up the technology to join, email social@iacil.org.

Have an idea for a group event that you would like IA to host? Let us know, we would love to discuss making it a reality!

All groups are free and IA can help you with the technology set up, just shoot us an email at social@iacil.org! We will be adding new groups so always check iacil.org for changes to our schedule! Hope to see you soon!
Links and Resources

Along with the resource lists we've collected in the past few weeks. Here are some new ones.
Food Pantries
Here is a link to food pantries in Massachusetts. Click your town to find information. Call your skills trainer if you need further assistance.


You can also contact Project Bread at http://www.projectbread.org/get-help/ . They can assist you in getting access to food resources in your area.
Información de desempleo de Massachusetts sobre el virus COVID-19

Important Information on Nursing Homes

EOHHS has set up a call in line for families with loved ones in nursing homes.
Massachusetts Nursing Home Family Resource Line: 617-660-5399
Open Every Day – 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM

Find Letter below:
Good Morning,

The Executive Office of Health and Human Services is pleased to announce the launch of the Nursing Home Family Resource Line – a dedicated phone line to connect family members of nursing home and rest home residents with the information and resources they need. This new phone line provides one central contact for families and community members who have questions about the nursing home or rest home care their loved one is receiving during the COVID-19 outbreak.

The Nursing Home Family Resource Line is staffed from 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM, seven days a week. Staff will field questions on a range of topics and coordinate across state agencies to help provide answers.

These are unprecedented times and, understandably, families and community members have questions. We remain committed to providing relevant and timely information, and the Nursing Home Family Resource Line is another important resource.

Massachusetts Nursing Home Family Resource Line: 617-660-5399
Open Every Day – 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM

If there are any questions please do not hesitate to reach out to our office. We are all in this together.

Thank you,

Secretary Chen
Let Politics Die Let People Live
By: Bryan Bjorklund

This week, Bryan writes of his growing impatience with the current political landscape, or rather, he writes in bewilderment that this landscape is political at all. With so much at stake, american citizens, american workers, american lives, need to be put first.
For most of us, this isolation and quarantine has hit hard by now. It is been roughly a month and there are still many questions that need to be answered. I, like a lot of you, have been uniquely searching for ways to cope and finding at the end of each day a glimmer of hope. During what has turned into a worldwide crisis there has been ample time for personal and professional reflection which I have utilized and realized that the best way to handle all of this, is to let politics die, and let people live. Now that’s not to say the government needs to disappear but what needs to disappear is the delineation and separation between parties.

Politics are based on the fundamentals of change therefore we as a world had the opportunity to promote change on a unified front. It should not be Democrats against Republicans as two separate parties, but rather, the introduction of a new party, one party known as humanity. Yes these are challenging times without question but it is also a unique chance to turn a challenge into a positive rather than a negative. Let us as a nation be less divisive and more decisive. The larger question becomes what are we willing to change so that times like this, as strange as they may be, no longer exist?

We live in a country known as the United States of America, and it is time to become personal and not political and let the United in United States stand for something. Change is not about size but rather about impact. Challenge yourself to find a way to impact and at the end of all this, I promise we will be intact. Charles Darwin and his survival of the fittest theory was developed to teach us how to remain alive and therefore continue to thrive.

Consider this not an article of doom and gloom, but a call to action to personally plant the seeds for May flowers of hope so that they can bloom. So, what can you do check on your neighbors and your friends because I’m sure like most of us they have questions too. Be the change so we can defeat the strange. And remember when we let politics die and people live we can come together united as one when all of this darkness and unknown is done.
Food insecurity and the Coronavirus
By Ryan MacLeod 

Ryan, our Youth Programs Coordinator, shares his frustration with the gross inequalities inherent in a society that puts profit over people. A society that would sooner burn its food than give it to its oppressed.
Perhaps you have seen on the news the “endless lines of cars” found all across this country. Desperate people waiting to access food banks for the “privilege” of getting to eat. People waiting in lines for hours, many of whom as of just a few weeks ago were employed full time, now find themselves in dire straits struggling to survive. How, in the richest country in the history of the world, are so many people food insecure? 
The 2019 Gross Domestic Product of The United States was $65,456; that is, if the gains of the economy were equitably distributed, each person, be they man, woman, child, elderly, worker, non-worker, person with disability, etc. would have made about $65,000 for the year. A family of four would make over $260,000, more than enough live comfortably. Perfectly equitable division would not be desirable or work out great, so perhaps that isn’t a great idea. But do you really think we couldn’t do better than millions of Americans food insecure without a place to live or access to healthcare? Do you really think we couldn’t allocate resources in a way that every man, woman, and child in this country had access to enough nutritious food, a place to live, and healthcare without ruining America? The problem isn’t a lack of resources; rather, it is that so many of the resources are controlled by so few and millions of us work full times jobs and live paycheck to paycheck and, if something happens out of our control and we lose that job (say, for example, a worldwide pandemic), many of us are now forced to wait in hours long lines just to be able to eat. Is this a system worth saving?

This pandemic has exposed deep structural inequalities that so many have insulated themselves from seeing for so long. In the richest country in the history of the world, we all deserve to sleep indoors, eat food, and if we are sick receive healthcare. Guaranteeing those things to everyone would make our society stronger and healthier. Beware anyone trying to return us “back to normal.” Normal does not work for millions of Americans, disproportionately those from marginalized communities, including Americans with disabilities.

We need to divorce the right to survive from work; as human beings in the richest country in the history of the world, we should be able to have basic human rights and dignity whether our disabilities or circumstances permit us to work or not, and if there is an external shock that leads to millions of us losing our jobs, we do not lose our basic rights to sleep indoors, eat food, and get healthcare when we are sick. Food banks and Go Fund Me campaigns are no way to run a society. We can and must learn the lessons from this pandemic, that human life is more important than profits. We cannot go backwards, we must go forward and stand up for human beings, not the short term profits of greedy corporations and people who for too long have dominated our society. We can, and we must, do better. 

PCA's get 10% Pay Increase
  • If you are a PCA, you'll be getting some extra money with every paycheck. MassHealth has increased the pay rate by 10% until the state of emergency is over.
Off the Press
Click title to go to articles

"As part of the stimulus bill  passed  in late March, DeVos was given 30 days to issue a report to Congress with recommendations for any waivers she believes are necessary under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act to “provide limited flexibility” to states and school districts during the emergency."

"The growing number of cases could soon lead to hard choices for health care providers, officials have said. In  the letter  to the state, the group of concerned health care professionals said the state standards “will result in the withdrawal of life-saving care ― including mechanical ventilation ― from a disproportionate number of indigenous people, Black people, Latinx people, other communities of color, elders, immigrants, asylees, refugees, and those who are undocumented, uninsured, incarcerated, homeless, experiencing poverty, or living with disability.”"