She reads newspapers and has memberships at a number of consumer-based organizations which deal with disability issues, and so she is painfully aware that very few projects exist which offer housing and attendant care. She knows she is not eligible for Outreach, because she needs help more than three times per day.

Because the turnover and subsequent vacancy rates for attendant care are slow, Vivian will have to seriously think about organizing a new project were she would have a better chance of getting in. It only takes three or four years to develop a project, because many of the documents each group has to create can now be built upon those of existing groups. Personnel policies, bylaws, job descriptions, flow charts, program plans, hiring plans, land allocations, contracts with housing companies, rental subsidies, selection of staff and tenants all take time. Vivian is optimistic that she could accomplish this before her parents retire.

In terms of looking for a job, she will require alternate transportation until the Wheel-Trans service has an available place. Wheel-Trans has become computerized, resulting in a more efficient system, so she might wait only two weeks. The odds against Vivian getting Wheel-Trans decrease if the job site is far from home, and if it falls outside the travel path of existing runs. She has no way of finding out the Wheel-Trans runs before job hunting, but she is an adventurous spirit and goes ahead anyway, letting the dice fall where they may. This is, after all, an improvement from ten years ago, before there was even such a thing as Wheel-Trans. She is thankful for all the hours she invested to lobby for at least a demonstration project. Before Wheel-Trans, Vivian could not have gone out anywhere on her own, and now that the hours have been extended to week-ends and 11:00 p.m., she has the possibility of a job where she might be required to work evenings or weekends.

The fact that sometimes the vans have been known to catch on fire, or, more often, a passenger falls when a hydraulic lift cracks at the seams, is not really on her mind as she books her rides. Because Vivian can read and write, she was able to do the lobbying, address questionnaire envelopes, send letters to her MPs and MPPs, write the newspapers and finally, fill in the form to register for the service, which her doctor and one other health professional co-signed, as required, to assure Wheel-Trans that she was not pretending to be disabled.

With her basic mobility needs met, Vivian can continue to look for a job. With her good education and communication skills, she will find appropriate employment with reasonable pay. Without her education, she would not be able to work at all. Jobs which rely upon physical strength are out of reach: she can not work with a construction crew, arrange goods in a shop, work a cash register or paint houses. Even for a non-disabled person, these options are fading if one lacks the basic literacy skills essential for learning computerized cash machines, reading paint labels or operating manuals and completing invoices.

It was crucial for Vivian to receive a good education. It pays off now as she scans the want ads, looking for employers who announce the job is an "equal opportunity" position, so she can have at least minimal assurance that they won't be daunted by the fact that she brings her own chair to the interview.

Vivian is extraverted, so she has always made friends easily and has the social skills to make her friendships blossom. She looks forward to being married someday, and perhaps even raising children, but she'll wait until she has the energy. Oh, the energy isn't for raising the kids, it's for doing the advocacy necessary to develop housing where she can receive attendant care services in a family situation, for encouraging and shaping governmental policies to permit additional assistance to her raising her children, and for educating her doctor, maternity nurses and attendants of her right to have her child if she wishes, despite her disability. Her writing skills will serve her well as she writes letters, proposals, conducts research and develops surveys to document the need.

And now we're full circle: let's look at how these problems are compounded if the disabled woman who has been the focus of this discussion could not read and write.

Like Sarah, Vivian would have been educated in a segregated system, where the expectations were lowered and her handicapping condition was considered insurmountable. The professional advising on her curriculum would have assumed Vivian was not educable or, if she was, teaching her would take skills beyond the expertise of her teachers.

Vivian hasn't had to devote the time or energy to developing services, where none previously existed, but she has helped to discover what services might assist her, with the advice of someone who understands the systems well. This person must present Vivian's case wisely to ensure Vivian receives transportation and attendant care services.

Vivian has to rely on the meager income provided through the disability pension, because she does not have any skills to bring to the market place. Depending upon the philosophy of her social worker, she might be "encouraged" to spend all her days in a sheltered workshop. Her social worker shares the view of many social service professionals who believe it is better to have clients relegated to workshops to "earn" their benefits, although this means exclusive association with other people who share the same label, and the workshops tend to reinforce isolation from the mainstream of society . To refuse might jeopardize her benefits.

Without an income, Vivian can not be accepted into an attendant care project. Once her parents could no longer care for her at home, Vivian could only live in a chronic care institution, a fate her parents initially wished to avoid.

Vivian's experiences would primarily be within a segregated context: she would have had disabled classmates, disabled workmates, and eventually, disabled roommates. Her social circle would be very narrow and she would be quite lucky indeed if, over the years, relationships were sustained where she mattered to anyone. Most of the people with whom she would be in contact would be paid to spend time with her. A relationship, marriage and children would be out of the question. Her chances of being sterilized socially, if not physically, would be rather high if she lived in an institution. On top of all this, to learn to exist within these limitations, she would have to learn how to be a "happy disabled woman:" passive, submissive and accepting, not daring to show how unhappy she was for fear of making things worse.