‘I have never felt as disabled in my life’: Disabled community to rally against funding changes
By: Mariné Lourens
The Press: 24/06/2024
Christchurch resident Nevé Billing has had major vision impairment since she was 5 years old.
Christchurch resident Nevé Billing, 26, has had major vision impairment since she was 5 years old.
She is legally blind due to damaged optic nerves, but has never let her disability hold her back. She recently finished a business degree and is working part-time jobs while she looks for a full-time role.
Because of her vision impairment, Billing is highly dependent on Uber and other taxi services to get where she needs to go.
However, after Whaikaha, the Ministry of Disabled People, without warning announced cuts to disability services in March, she is no longer able to use her funding for transportation.
A protest was held in Christchurch in March this year after the announcement by the Ministry of Disabled people about the changes to its funding.
“I have never felt as disabled in my life,” Billing said.
“I like living independently and I don’t like relying on people, so if I can’t get a ride with someone else, I am just trapped at home.”
Whaikaha earlier announced it was changing purchasing rules for disabled people and their carers, limiting what disabled people can buy with their funding.
Since then the ministry has provided clarifications on the rules, including that ride and driver services can be used only “to access services or engage with the community, where this is a reasonable and cost-effective option”.
Billing said she didn’t think the people making the funding decisions realised how much disabled people relied on the funding to support them in ways they needed to be supported.
She said she had been dealing with visual impairment for most of her life and had always found “workarounds”, such as using her disability funding to get around independently.
“Now that I don’t have that anymore, it has made me feel extremely isolated and like I’ve lost my freedom and independence.”
Billing will join other Cantabrians with disabilities and supporters at a Disability Leadership Canterbury rally in Christchurch on Monday to protest against the funding changes and what she sees as marginalisation of the disabled community.
“The rally is to show that we are not going to just sit back and take this. They need to relook at the decisions that have been made around the purchasing guidelines.”
She said she couldn’t see any issue with the way the funding was structured before, and believed the changes were simply a way to make it more difficult for disabled people to access funding support.
“I don’t see why every disabled person can’t use the money that has been allocated to them for the things they know they need.”
Last Updated 25/06/2024
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