Family Stories

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First, we hope that people watching this film will see that even through the challenges, there is an abundance of love and joy in our homes. Additionally, it is our sincere hope that this film will spark interest in solution-focused conversations that lead to actionable steps, policy changes, and greater community support to ensure families like ours can thrive in safe, accessible spaces.

We wanted to take part in the Feels Like Home film to shine a light on the real-life, everyday joys and challenges faced by families raising children with complex medical needs. As parents and caregivers, we become master organizers, carpenters, and innovators. Most people will never know what it’s like to “make do” with non-accessible or inadequately accessible homes, the place where we spend the large majority of our time as a family. This film provides a glimpse into our lives and will hopefully spark larger conversations around home accessibility, needed resources, and support for the many families just like ours.

We are truly grateful to everyone who worked so hard to give us this platform to tell our family’s story in such a real and compassionate manner. We look forward to seeing the connections and change this film inspires, while reminding others that inclusion, empathy, and accessibility are essentials for strong, healthy communities.

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We want people to know that it is not easy. A little help goes a long way. It doesn't matter where you live or what is your status, if you have a disabled child, you need help. We want people to be aware of the challenges we face and what kind of help we need.

We took part to shed light on the struggle that families like ours face on a daily basis that others might not necessarily be aware of. We hope that it will be shown to lawmakers to help legislate and provide funding for disabled children as we don’t want to be passive.

We hope that those children don’t have to “jump through hoops” to get what they need. Things like adaptive equipment, home modifications, vehicle modifications should be easy to get, with a straightforward process. It feels everything is a secret, and has to be denied so many times until it gets approved and once it is approved and delivered it is already too late. Oftentimes with these children we don’t have the luxury of time, we have small windows of opportunity that are often missed because of lack of resources, funding, bureaucracy, insurance, etc..

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We wanted to take part in this film to help bring awareness to an aspect of life for parents of disabled children that many people don’t think about. Everybody assumes we all just live in already accessible houses, which is far from the norm. We wanted people to know how incredibly difficult, and time consuming the process is even if you have the ability to go through insurance channels such as waivers. And in the mean time your child just keeps on growing bigger and bigger, and we struggle more and more.

We hope people see how hard we try. How much harder everything in life is for us. And why it’s so important that more is done to help families like ours. The ability to move around your own house should be considered a basic need and unfortunately it’s not. So we do our best to make our houses functional, accessible and most of all feel like home.