Accessibility Recommendations from ARCH and CELA

“Accepting the leadership offered by the Task Force on Environmental Health to address the health care system, proactive change can begin immediately at all levels of society including federal, provincial, and municipal governments and public departments and agencies.

These would include, but are not limited to, public transportation providers, school boards, and the private sector.”

screenshots
of  the report recommendations
with source added

 

The Legal Rights and Challenges Faced by Persons with Chronic Disability Triggered by Environmental Factors

From ARCH Disability Law Centre and the Canadian Environmental Law Association (CELA),  September 2019

“3. Conclusion While there has been significant research and study into barriers to include persons with EH disabilities, critical obstacles remain.

Seeking help in the health system, trying to find and/or retain adequate housing or employment, entering public spaces, shopping, or using public transportation, limit the inclusion of persons with EH disabilities in our communities.

Much more needs to be done to acknowledge the significant hurdles faced by persons with EH disabilities.

The Canadian Human Rights Commission’s “Environmental sensitivity and scent-free policies”

The Canadian Human Rights Commission’s
Policy on Environmental Sensitivities
has been updated to add more on scent-free policies.

Image description: “Environmental sensitivity and scent-free policies” text on a blue background to the left, with a photo of a dark haired woman resting her chin on her hand, while looking wistfully (towards the title  text) out a window with rain drops on it, on the right side.

The new policy includes this:

“A scent-free policy is similar to other workplace policies such as
anti-harassment policies. It applies to all employees and is intended to guide
their conduct. If an employee does not comply with the policy, disciplinary
action can be taken.”

and this:

“If an employee with environmental sensitivities needs to leave because of a trigger, this person should not suffer negative impacts because of their disability
or their need for accommodation.”

 

Visit the CHRC website to download the PDF:
https://www.chrc-ccdp.gc.ca/eng/content/policy-environmental-sensitivities

 

Full text of the policy
(as copied from their PDF for people who have difficulties with PDFs):

The Fragrance-free Checklist

 

It seems like the best way to clear up some confusion about being fragrance-free, is to provide a checklist of products and places where fragrances that can make you not be fragrance-free are found, so that you don’t inadvertently bring fragrances with you when going  somewhere with a strict fragrance-free policy.

The checklist addresses some common misconceptions about what being fragrance-free really means.

Being fragrance-free is about more than not using perfume or cologne.
It’s also not about skipping deodorant, as some people seem to think.

Accessible Meetings Guide Addresses Chemical and Electrical Sensitivities

Another great resource shared by Mary Lamielle, this time on how to make events accessible for people with MCS/ES.

Accessible Meetings Guide Addresses Chemical and Electrical Sensitivities

Harvard Medical School Associate Professor Speaks about MCS: Video

Dr. L. Christine Oliver is an Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Co-Director of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital.

This is an excellent half hour presentation.

Dr Oliver packs so much about the issues faced by people with MCS into the first 16 minutes of this video. If you can’t watch the whole video, at least watch this much.  Alison Johnson finishes off by reading from her important book Amputated Lives.

Alison Johnson is the author/producer/director of books and documentaries on Multiple Chemical Sensitivity. Visit http://www.alisonjohnsonmcs.com to download a transcript or to purchase her books or DVDs.

Healthy Housing for Ann – Help Needed

 

My friend Ann needs to relocate soon, and really needs an accessible place where exposures to pollutants are minimized as much as possible.

The Plays that Says Here
Painting by Ann Cognito

 

She has written about her needs here:

Hello, I am a friend of Linda’s, who needs to find safe and accommodative housing. My name is Ann Cognito (pen name – my legal surname is Bucknor).

I am an older woman with disabilities and serious long term health issues including severe chronic pain (multiple causes) and severe environmental/chemical intolerances (probably MCS; I’m on a very long list waiting for assessment at the Women’s College Hospital Environmental Health Clinic). I am also agoraphobic, autistic, and have CPTSD.

Before my health deteriorated so much, I used to have a career, and owned my home.  I am very well educated, and an environmental activist. While I was still able to function more, I walked from Calgary to Ottawa with my support/service dog to raise awareness about the climate crisis. 

I am now looking for safe housing, again.

Are You Feeling Lucky?

Some of us are fairly independent, (no-one is fully independent  in an interdependent society).

Some of us may need helping hands to exist, sometimes in little ways, sometimes in seemingly big ways, which can seem even larger if policies have been created that make solutions much harder to access or create.

Some people’s basic medical needs which make it possible for them to exist are expensive, and these survival needs may seem elitist to others who can’t afford them, because the system is set up to make healthier (and for some, medically necessary) options more expensive and unavailable to everyone, even though everyone would benefit from access to them.

Society has also been conditioned to add on a quiet “they must be doing something wrong if they can’t manage independently”, and “I can’t afford those things that I would like to have too”, or  “I had to work my ass off for those things, why should someone get them for free”.

Are you feeling lucky today that your basic needs are being met?

Here’s a list of questions to consider:

a seriously ‘sensitive’ to pollution update and two requests

You may have noticed that I haven’t posted much in the past 2-3 years, and there are reasons for that, reasons which have taken their toll on my cognitive and physical abilities.

I won’t bore you with the details, as there’s not much point in doing so, but I do have a couple of requests.

Help Susy Find and Afford Safe, Accessible Housing to Prevent MAiD

Long time MCS/ES community member Susy Mallin needs our support now.

She has managed to survive years of brutal conditions due to the severity of her MCS/ES, but all this has taken a big toll on her, and she is out of energy to keep struggling just to exist.

She needs medically safe, low toxicity housing on the Sunshine Coast area of BC where her family lives, housing that is affordable on a senior’s fixed income, a home where she isn’t exposed to chemicals, fragrances, smoke, pesticides, and other pollutants all the time. For these reasons, she can’t live in any multi-unit buildings.

You might see the issue with this need.

Housing is unaffordable for so many now, especially for people with medical needs for “healthy” housing, made with inert, low VOC materials.

People with MCS/ES don’t have a social safety net, our ability to live really does depend on community support, on you.

Please donate generously so that Susy can spend her remaining years in some relative peace.

Please be on the lookout for housing that could be suitable for her.

In a world that has otherwise made it abundantly clear that she, and others with more severe MCS/ES, aren’t really welcome, and who don’t care how much preventable suffering is imposed and endured, let’s show Susy that humans care enough to make it possible for her to exist, to be able to live out her natural life in dignity, and hopefully even be able to return to sharing her art with us.

♥
Read more, and donate here:

↓

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-save-susys-life

♥

Silver jewellery made by Susy when making jewellery was still possible.

Please share widely.
Thank you for anything you can contribute.

An UPDATE on Susy’s situation (March 11th, 2023)

MCS and Housing Update

The MCS and Housing  page has an entirely new updated resource section, divided into a few different categories.

Hope you find it helpful.

MCS and Housing

…

May safe, accessible, medically required housing be available for all who need it.

Fragrance-free in 2023

♥

Be fragrance-free in 23
It’s good for me. It’s good for thee.

2023
is the year
for me and for thee
to be fragrance-free

fragrance-free in 23

fragrance-free in 23

fragrance-free in 23

fragrance-free in 23

fragrance-free in 23

…

Resources:

The Fragrance-free Checklist

The Fragrance-free Checklist

…

Help for How to Be Fragrance-Free

Help for How to Be Fragrance-Free

…

They Said I Wasn’t Fragrance-Free. How Can That Be?

They Said I Wasn’t Fragrance-Free. How Can That Be?

…

So You Think We’re Being Difficult When We ask You to Change Products?

So You Think We’re Being Difficult When We ask You to Change Products?

…

Wishing you all a very fragrance-free 2023!
♥

Van Living with MCS/ES

Marie’s an artist with severe mold sensitivity and MCS/ES, and has created an amazing slide show and photo  exhibits to raise awareness about the plight of people with environmental sensitivities and environmental illnesses, despite living in a dilapitated van, having to travel to the US for our winters because it’s too cold in a van here in Canada.

We really don’t have accessible housing for people with severe MCS/ES. I have several good online friends living in vehicles now because there’s no accessible housing. Marie is one of them, and she needs a reliable new (to her) van really soon, so that she can continue to live and create the beautiful, challenging, and awareness-raising art she lives for.

Life in a specialized van is hard enough, but it’s not at all safe in the old one she’s been trying to maintain the last few years. The old van has come to the end of it’s life. She has been harassed by unscrupulous men a number of times when the van broke down, and she deserves better than this from our society.

Let’s make sure she receives what she needs. No contribution is too small. Likewise, no donation is too big if you have more than you need.

Can you please donate, share, and ask the people you know to donate and share too? The world needs Marie!

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-marie-leblanc

https://youtu.be/ni8-MiL8LzU

Hunger Strike for Access to Safe Health Care

Ginette lives in Quebec and has been trying to access health care safely for years, without success. The fragrance exposures cause severe symptoms and her health is deteriorating as a result of not being able to have her basic needs met, because… fragrance.

She posted this video to her fb profile:

Here’s a  rough English transcript:

MCS Awareness Video by Maria Rizzo

…

This excellent video about MCS/ES was made in 2020 by Maria Rizzo, who was behind the Fragrance Free Revolution, but has not aged a second.  It is just as relevant today as it was then.

♥

The only thing that has changed, is that Maria is no longer with us. She lost her life in December 2020 after being subjected to too many exposures when spending time in hospitals with her father.

She wasn’t able to recover from those exposures, the broken heart of losing her father, and of the world that harms us instead of welcomes us.

The tribute her partner wrote when he informed the community of her passing can be found here.

I miss collaborating with Maria, I miss her creative energy, and her ability to do things in clear and concise ways.

She’d still be with us if hospitals and the rest of the world stopped inflicting unnecessary poisons on us all, and instead respected our human rights as well as their own vulnerability to 24/7 exposures to unnecessary hazardous substances.

Her death is a great loss to the global MCS/ES community.

…

 Rest in power Maria.

♥

2021 – Welcome to MCS/ES Action and Accommodation Month

Traditionally May is MCS and MCS/ES Awareness Month.

After decades of awareness raising, it’s time to move on to welcoming action and accommodation, don’t you think?

Are people with MCS/ES, often referred to as Human Canaries, actually welcome in this world?

If you are a person with MCS/ES, please share in the comments if and how you are being accommodated and welcomed (or not) in this world.

If you are a person who doesn’t have MCS/ES, please share in the comments how you are accommodating and welcoming people with MCS/ES into the world.