Home for disabled nearly completed

Press, 13 June 1978, Page 14

Home for disabled nearly completed

Residents will begin to move into the new Laura

Fergusson Trust home for) the disabled in Ham Road in October. The 23-bed home, costing $500,000, should be completed by the end of August) and officially opened in No-) vember. members of the)' Laura Fergusson Trust for Disabled Persons were told at their annual meeting. The chairman (Mr P. M.; Hargreaves') said that applications were now open to ! disabled persons who wished I to live in the home. The; cost would be about $5O a ; week. Members were reminded I that the aim of the home) i was td help people rehabili-! tate themeslves rather than i just to offer long-term resi-: idence for the disabled. I Mr Hargreaves said that |the trust would have-to be

careful that the home did not run at a loss but at the same time it had to be as fair as it could to its residents. The trust aimed to start the home with a “reasonably full complement” of residents. It was quite an achievement that the trust had reached this point in only four years, he said, thanking all who had helped )to make the home a reality. Members were told that vandals, mostly children, had already damaged the building. Mr Hargreaves was elected chairman of the trust for the fifth successive year, and Mr B. R. Walker was elected vice-chairman. Dr B. Tait was the only new member elected to the board of 12 members.