The Ontario government has given Maggie an ultimatum: the disabled teen can lose her funding or her independence. She has no choice but to accept the government’s offer.
In a desperate attempt to keep her in her foster family, Maggie’s mother, Krista, and three of her adult sisters have come together with the help of three adoption agencies.
“My mom is a single mother with three children,” Krista said. “She doesn’t have a lot of money. I thought the program was a good one.”
That’s how Maggie came to stay with Krista and the other three in the house on Pine Street, a two-storey house with a basement and a steep front stoop where a toddler used to live. Her foster parents are always asking her to make noise so they don’t have to clean up the messes.
But Krista and Maggie still live with their other relatives in a small apartment and don’t have space for their foster daughter.
“It’s kind of crowded,” Krista said. “It’s bad. We have other family members staying here.”
But Maggie had started losing her ability to walk and was told she was going to live with them until she got better.
“She told me that she didn’t want to live with the foster family that I had recommended but that I could come to their house until I got better,” said Krista of Maggie. “I was very disappointed.”
“I had to sign a piece of paper that said Maggie would be with me until she got better,” Karen Nolley said.
The two women have agreed to help Maggie out of the house when Krista is on her own.
“It’s a sacrifice on my side,” Krista said. “I don’t have the money to get a better place to live. And it would just be too hard on Maggie.”
Krista said she needs the money to help pay for Maggie’s medical treatment but can’t find a place for her to stay.
