Feel good outcome - her ‘own home’

There’s been a happy ending to the distressing story of a disabled girl who feared being forcibly evicted from Crowle Home in Meadowbank.

Vicki McKerrell spent most of her life in the secure, familiar surroundings of Crowle Home where she was cared for alongside dozens of other residents she called friends.

Soon after disability service provider Achieve Australia took over management of Crowle Home last year, residents began moving into group community homes as Achieve announced plans to demolish Crowle and build residential apartments on the site.

Vicki’s mum Jo and father Don said their daughter feared being taken away from Crowle and resisted the idea.

“Vicki really loved Crowle. She didn’t want to leave,” Ms McKerrell said.

The McKerrell family said they were aware of government policy to “de-institutionalise” people with a disability but stood by their daughter and her wish to remain where she was.

Then something happened that changed her wish completely.

“After visiting friends who’d moved out of Crowle into group community homes Vicki changed her mind,” Ms McKerrell said.

“She wanted to have the lovely life they had.”

So Vicki moved into her own group home in Keats Street, Carlingford three months ago and said she was happy to have her “own home” which she shared with two other friends.

She said she loved her new street nestled behind Carlingford Court, had taken up ‘power walking” and admitted to a new weakness for window shopping on the centre’s fashion level.

Gardening is her latest hobby and Vicki has adopted the custom of picking a flower from “my own garden” to give visitors.

Parents Jo and Don said the change in Vicki’s life since she moved from Crowle Home had changed their lives as well.

“We’ve been made redundant,” Don said.

“When Vicki was at Crowle she would always be phoning us anxiously and asking for our help but now she hardly phones us at all, she's happy here.”

Vicki receives the same standard of around-the-clock attention from Achieve Australia staff that other former Crowle residents enjoy in other group homes.

Vicki said the best thing about her new home was that it had nice artwork and was quiet. The worst thing about it was that it was hard to get good reception on Channel Nine in Carlingford.

But was their anything her new house needed to become a true home?

“A boat in the frontyard,” she said.

Don explained that he was building a boat in his frontyard in Eastwood and that he’d been at it for so long his daughter had come to associate “home” with the boat in the frontyard.

Vicki McKerrell picks a flower from her garden to give to mum and dad. TWT on-the-spot PHOTO