[nagdu] Did anyone watch the home makeover show yesterday. the family has a guide dog and are diabetics, but they didn't go into any of that at all.

[Lyn Gwizdak]

Hi Cheryl,
I watched the Home Makeover on ABC last Sunday night.

I had the same questions myself.  The couple appeared to lack real blindness 
skills and the ability to navigate their own home for hazards like the 
cabinets and microwave sticking out.  I did wonder about the dog with its 
digging a hole in the dirt while in harness.  I saw the harness but couldn't 
decern the school. It had no martingale on it so it wasn't a Seeing Eye dog.

The house they were in really was a VERY substandard home that Section 8 
would NEVER approve it one of their participants wanted to rent it.  The 
bathroom sink falling off the wall!  Wow!  The toilet coming up off the 
floor.  I wonder how on earth did the state ever license the couple to run 
an agency for the disabled with a building in that condition???

I'm glad they got the new home, but I wonder if the couple will soon have to 
be forclosed on and lose it because of the new rate of taxes on it? It 
looked like a huge mansion after ABC Home Makeover rebuilt it from scratch - 
you know with the much increased square footage and all.

I think unfortunately, most blind people - especially the older new blind - 
have few real skills like the younger folks who have been blind longer or 
who have gone to a place like the NFB centers shortly after becoming blind. 
It is still pretty real that most sighted folks still love to pity us and 
any other disabled person.  This attitude fuels the continuing 
discrimination we get.  It sucks.

These kinds of shows just reinforce this lousey attitude and it makes money 
for the corporations - not us!

Lyn and Landon


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Brenda" <bjnite at windstream.net>
To: "NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users" 
<nagdu at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Monday, December 06, 2010 8:59 AM
Subject: Re: [nagdu] Did anyone watch the home makeover show yesterday. the 
family has a guide dog and are diabetics, but they didn't go into any of 
that at all.


> Did the family actually have a guide dog?  They showed the dog but not 
> much else and never even showed his harness and never even showed the 
> parents walking down the street independently to try the traffic light. 
> (They showed the traffic light, but just let the family hear it over the 
> phone.)
>
> On 12/6/2010 11:50 AM, cheryl echevarria wrote:
>> Good morning all:
>>
>> This was the second time that ABC Extreme Home Make Over did a  home make 
>> over for a blind family.
>>
>> The got some stuff right, but again I have some questions, some about the 
>> family, and some about what ABC did?
>>
>> Question about the Anderson family.  Now these are questions I may right 
>> to the show about, but mostly they are pondering in my head to share with 
>> all.
>>
>> The Anderson Family
>>
>> 1.  They are from what I understand and family who gives support to other 
>> people with disabilities.  One of my questions is are they members of 
>> either the NFB or another organization, trained in all of this from being 
>> in the field, or just decided to do it all by themselves.
>>
>> 2.  They never went into there diabetes, since both of them are diabetic, 
>> like do they use anything like the prodigy voice or the solo meter to 
>> test the blood, the team never asked that either.
>>
>> 3. The husband has a guide dog, but at one point when they were talking 
>> to the family, my husband said that the dog was in harness and digging a 
>> whole in the ground. WHAT is that about?
>>
>> 4.  If they are having problems with the traffic lights, then why didn't 
>> they just contact the town or the legislative body in there area and get 
>> it fixed.  If they are a company or business out there helping other 
>> blind and disabled people shouldn't they be doing this for themselves 
>> first before helping others to do it.
>>
>> ABC:  This the 2nd time in 8 Seasons that they have focused or help and 
>> blind family, and still haven't gotten it correctly.
>>
>> 1.  The technology.  They didn't say where they got the technology, the 
>> didn't go to NFB or the other organization for advice, they just went to 
>> the technology stores that have technology for the blind.
>>
>> 2. And Electric Cane, now come on, do we if we were taught properly to 
>> use our canes, do we need a cane that vibrates when we are near 
>> something. They are diabetic, they can have neuropathy and not be able to 
>> tell if they are vibrating, etc.
>>
>> 3. The stove they got, yes she got burned many times, again diabetic, 
>> they got them the counter tops and wall oven, but they didn't label it or 
>> at least put raised dots on the stove/oven.
>>
>>
>> To many other issues there.
>>
>> I don't know if the NFB members ever wrote the first time to ABC and got 
>> responses on these issues.
>>
>> But I plan on starting a writing campaign.  Let me know if you are 
>> interested.
>> The biggest compliment you can pay me is to recommend my services!
>>
>> Cheryl Echevarria
>> http://Echevarriatravel.com<http://echevarriatravel.com/>
>> 1-866-580-5574
>> Reservations at echevarriatravel.com<mailto:Reservations at echevarriatravel.com>
>>
>> Affiliated as an Independent Contractor with Montrose Travel 
>> CST-1018299-10
>> Affiliated as an Independent Contractor with Absolute Cruise and Travel 
>> Inc.
>>
>> join my yahoogroup
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