Category Archives: Air Quality

Healthy Housing for Ann – Help Needed

Posted on April 14, 2024 | 2 comments

 

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.

Continue reading →

2 Comments

Posted in Accessibility, Air Quality, Community, Disability, Environmental Health, Health, Human Rights, Medically Required Housing, Real Estate

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Are You Feeling Lucky?

Posted on May 5, 2023 | 1 comment

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:

Continue reading →

1 Comment

Posted in Accessibility, Air Quality, Disability, Environmental Health, Fragrance, Health, Housing, Human Rights, Medically Required Housing, Multiple Chemical Sensitivities

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Van Living with MCS/ES

Posted on June 15, 2021 | 10 comments
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!

10 Comments

Posted in Accessibility, Air Quality, Environmental Health, Environmental Sensitivities, Housing, Human Rights

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What Now?

Posted on March 13, 2021 | 20 comments

 

A brief account of a seriously “sensitive” to pollution person living in a society where fragranced and toxic products are more important than lives, where disabled lives are disposeable, where it’s now easy to be euthanized (even for for externally imposed and inflicted) suffering, but not to receive support to remove the causes of suffering, causes and conditions that have been made systemic for many people with disabilities.

I’m not a poet and I know it and I wrote it anyway…

What Now? Continue reading →

20 Comments

Posted in Accessibility, Air Quality, Community, Disability, Environmental Sensitivities, Food, Fragrance, Health, Healthy Environment, Housing, Human Rights, MCS/ES, Multiple Chemical Sensitivities, Pesticides, Policy, Pollution, Support

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When Being Quarantined or Isolated and Broke is “Normal”

Posted on September 5, 2020 | 1 comment

But Shouldn’t Have to Be

Guest Post by Joanne Cabe

I read a post from someone who was out of work and broke, who wrote that being quarantined and broke, or being an essential worker and working over time, isn’t normal for anyone.

I had to respond. I don’t know that it will do any good on people’s awareness, but this was my try for the day:

Continue reading →

1 Comment

Posted in Accessibility, Air Quality, Environmental Health, Fragrance, Health

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Homeless Canaries Need Access to Fragrance-Free Showers

Posted on May 2, 2020 | 12 comments

 

I saw an announcement on fb from a city agency that was opening up an arena to allow homeless people a place to shower, and they were also providing soap, shampoo, and other necessities.

“People who are homeless or precariously housed in (the city) relied upon bathrooms and showers in public facilities. But, they have closed their doors during the pandemic. There are now free showers and washrooms open daily at (the)  Arena.”

Homelessness is something far too many human canaries are intimately  familiar with, since there are so few accessible, medically safe housing options available when our ‘sensitivities’ become disabling.  Many  human canaries are  precariously housed too.


Graphic image text description:
Everyone welcome.
Toothbrushes, shampoo, soap, and more provided.
Free showers & washrooms
———————————————————————-
ACCESSIBILITY QUESTION:
Is the soap and shampoo fragrance-free so that people with environmental ‘sensitivities’ could also access the space?
MAY is MCS/ES Awareness Month
—

I was (due to MCS/ES related accessibility barriers) homeless myself for a year, and the need to shower did not go away. I know several homeless canaries now, one who just a few days ago was discussing her attempts to create a shower outside the van she is living in, so I asked the fb page a question about accessibility for homeless canaries.

Here’s what happened:

Continue reading →

12 Comments

Posted in Accessibility, Air Quality, Disability, Environmental Health, Environmental Sensitivities, Fragrance, Human Rights, Medically Required Housing, Policy, Public Health

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The Fragrance Free Revolution

Posted on February 13, 2020 | 4 comments

Are you on facebook?

If so, please check out and follow the

Fragrance Free Revolution

They share  memes with accompanying information for people with chemical, fragrance, and environmental ‘sensitivities’.

This is one of my absolute favourites!

Image description:

A fair skinned woman is growing out of a terra cotta flower pot. She wears something white and sleeveless. She has long wavy hair that is surrounded by several pink flowers of varying sizes. Her head is tilted to one side and that arm is holding up one of the flowers between her ear and her forehead.

Image text:

If you were meant to smell of fragrance you would’ve been a plant.

Be fragrance free, it’s what nature intended.

#No Fragrances #No Essential Oils  SOS #Back to Basics

 

Direct link to this specific fb post:
https://www.facebook.com/fragrancefreerevolution/photos/a.107251783966059/192533602104543/

 

 

4 Comments

Posted in Air Quality, Environment, Fragrance, Health Promotion, Nature

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Accessibility Recommendations from ARCH and CELA

Posted on January 10, 2020 | 5 comments

“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.

Continue reading →

5 Comments

Posted in Accessibility, Air Quality, Disability, Environmental Health, Health Care, Housing, Human Rights, Policy, Pollution, Public Health

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Attitudinal barriers, fragranced products, and invisible disabilities

Posted on December 26, 2019 | 10 comments

Having been housebound for far too many years due to having to avoid exposure  to common, everyday products and materials that disable me, has given me time to observe the world (and sometimes even make a little sense of it).

Still, there are some things that make no sense. With over 404,207 Ontario citizens diagnosed with MCS, and 740,370 with one or more diagnoses of MCS, FM, and/or CFS (ME) (in 2016), why hasn’t the Ontario government done anything about the Task Force recommendation to raise

Continue reading →

10 Comments

Posted in Accessibility, Air Quality, Disability, Environmental Health, Fragrance, Human Rights, Policy, Public Health

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Find all 25 reasons why I didn’t come (to your party)

Posted on December 25, 2019 | 2 comments

There are those who invite us to celebrations, sometimes year after year, but who also refuse to remove the accessibility barriers so that we can attend.

There are 25 barriers in this photo.
Can you find them all?

Click on the image to enlarge it.

Don’t understand?

Learn more here:

Continue reading →

2 Comments

Posted in Accessibility, Air Quality, Community, Disability, Environmental Health, Fragrance, Products

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