Southern Colorado Providers Say Coronavirus Impact Additive For Vulnerable Populations

CCDC In the News!

CCDC’s own Kristen Castor was interviewed as part of the following news report. Follow the link to read the entire article. Kristen’s section is below

Southern Colorado Providers Say Coronavirus Impact Additive For Vulnerable Populations

Kristen Castor
Non-attorney advocate with the Colorado Cross-Disability Coalition, based in Pueblo

Kristen Castor (second from right) works as a non-attorney advocate with the Colorado Cross-Disability Coalition.

CREDIT COLORADO CROSS-DISABILITY COALITION

On Her Work With The Organization
My primary responsibility is to represent people who are appealing Medicaid denials at the administrative law judge level with the state. And then I do a lot of miscellaneous organizing things. Right now there’s a lot, because we’re trying to get our own membership informed about the virus, the precautions they can take and the benefits that they have.

Interestingly enough, most of the people with disabilities that we serve live below the poverty level. So, anything that deals with poverty often crosses over with what we need to look at for our population.

On Supports And Challenges Due To COVID-19
I’ve been so worried about people being stuck in their homes and not able to get food. That just terrifies me. I think people with severe disabilities or possibly very elderly people are at high risk of that happening. And so far, the city [of Pueblo] has just responded by creating more networks and trying to help that particular population.

[We’ve been discussing] the fear that if you need medical help outside of your disability, that you will be triaged, and basically murdered. That’s the fear we live with that constantly. And the reason is because all of us, if we have a severe disability and lived with it for a number of years, all of us have been told to our faces by various people that we should not be alive. I’ve been told that.

We’ve been fighting for the right to live in the community for the last 40 years. So every time we go around with a threat like this, we’re thinking, ‘Oh my god, I fought all my life to stay independent, and now I might lose it with a pen stroke.’ And people with disabilities, we’re just that–we’re people. It doesn’t mean we can’t contribute.