(gentle music) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (knuckles rapping) - Morning!

Daniel?

May I come in?

(gentle music continues) My father, one thing he would say, "People make a difference in people's lives, so if you wanna make a difference, make a difference in people's life and that is even better than anything else."

You had a good time sleep last night, Dan?

- Yeah.

- Did you dream about me?

- No.

- (chuckling) No?

My mom was a nurse, so we got this line of individuals in our family, helping people has always been there, and I realized that this was pretty much a calling.

(gentle music continues) For 27 years, I have never felt like I'm really at work.

It always felt like I was just doing something that I enjoy doing.

(buckles snapping) Stand up.

Okay, good assistance.

Because it's not the money, it's not how much you get paid, to be honest, it's not too much.

You wanna put that chair down?

But it's beyond that, it's the friendship.

It's that connection that you bond with that individual.

(Daniel vocalizing) It's about the heart.

- Thank you.

- [Sam] Daniel and Sally.

(Daniel vocalizing) That's his wife.

- Yeah.

(vocalizing) - [Sam] You miss her?

- Yeah.

- Yes, he really does.

At the end of the day, I've made a difference in someone's life, and if that's what it is for me, my life is complete, I'm good.

(gentle music continues) - Before the 1940s, if people were born with disabilities, doctors would encourage parents to put their children in institutions.

They would have lack of medical care, lack of social interaction, maybe left to their own devices because of understaffing.

When Dan and Sally were born with cerebral palsy, I think it was relatively new that parents decided that they were gonna raise their children at home.

You can tell that Dan benefited from that love that he had growing up because it's made him such a loving person.

- Right?

- He attracts happy people.

He loves to joke around.

He has a really funny sense of humor.

(Sam and Daniel laughing) - Do you want me to translate that for you?

None of your business.

- Yeah, I know.

- That's what that is all about.

That's right.

(food processor whirring) (food processor clanking) Dan has taught me so many things in life.

When there's a day you feel sorry for yourself, meet Dan.

He is in a wheelchair, he is non-verbal, and this man gets up every morning with a smile.

- No, he didn't.

- Oh, yeah.

- Ooh, they look good.

Look at this.

We wear a lot of hat in this job, from being a nurse to a therapist sometimes, to a Uber driver, to a Instacart shopper.

They're small, but two.

(gentle music) I love taking care of people.

That's what I do.

You work with this individual for years and years and years.

You get to know the families.

You care.

They become your family.

There was a lot of people who spent Thanksgiving and Christmas at my house.

I loved it.

They knew my kids.

They grew up with my kids.

And when that somebody passes away, I think that is the hardest part of my job.

It takes me a little while to come to peace with it, you know?

Okay, Danny, do you want it nice and short, or you want the four?

(razor buzzing) The four?

Okay.

(razor buzzing continues) There was a time Dan was down because of his wife's passing.

Then Covid came and Dan got very, very sick.

(razor buzzing continues) At one point we thought that Dan has given up and so he was put on hospice.

(razor buzzing continues) And he was on hospice for almost a year.

I mean, we took care of him.

We tried to motivate him and I don't know how he did it, but he turned it around, he got off hospice.

He used to be on oxygen.

He's had no more oxygen, nothing.

He is somebody you can look at and say, "Hey, this man is incredible."

(gentle music) Okay, look at me for a minute.

I think you're pretty handsome.

What do you think?

You feel good?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

(gentle music) (lift whirring) (lift beeping) (gentle music continues) (people speaking faintly in background) - Morning, Dan!

- All your clothes in your bag?

(Daniel vocalizing) - How are you doing?

Ready to head over?

- Morning.

- Morning (indistinct).

- Morning.

(gentle music continues) (people chatting faintly in background) - You wanna start painting?

Dan is definitely the artist I work with who has the most physical needs, but he's incredibly self-motivated.

He wants to paint all day, every day, pretty much, and he comes in five days a week, so he's like full-time painting constantly.

(people speaking faintly in background) The process of painting for him seems to be like free jazz style, like no second guessing yourself, and like I think that's so incredible.

I kind of envy it a little bit.

(laughing) I love this color.

More bluish than I thought it would be.

(chuckling) He's constantly telling people to buy his art.

He like loves selling his work.

He like really loves putting his work out into the world.

It seems to me that it's like his paintings are like this extension of his love for living and like the people in his life.

When I ask him like what his paintings are titled, he'll name his paintings after specific people, often related to his relationships with others.

Like this?

- Yeah.

- I feel privileged to be a part of a system that can assist with creation for Dan.

Having to really consider and like reflect upon another person's physical, mental, emotional like wellbeing, it's like a relationship.

We both kind of have to deal with each other.

We both have to like listen to each other and like work with each other.

What do you think about the heavy, thick paint, Dan?

Do you like it?

I can add a little bit of water to it if you wanted.

Yeah?

Just being so present with another person, that is an intrinsic part of the job, but it's also like part of being human.

- Yeah.

- You have paint all over your face.

(laughing) - I am.

(Jessica laughing) (Daniel vocalizing) (Jessica chuckling) (gentle upbeat music) - Bye, Dan, have fun.

(gentle music) Hi, there.

Would someone from Sensory call 413?

I met Dan soon after I became a service coordinator.

At his house, so... Dan asked me if me and my husband wanted to double date with he and Sally, and I thought, "Yeah, that sounds really fun.

They're both really a fun couple."

Hi.

How's it going?

Soon after the four of us were going out pretty regularly, we'd go to happy hour, we'd celebrate birthdays.

(gentle music continues) Often a person who lives a good service life has only paid caregivers in their lives, and then a full life, a good life is where you've got a blend of people.

You've got natural supports and unpaid people in their lives, and so it's really important to me to be both for Dan.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

(Daniel vocalizing) April 1st is your anniversary?

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Do you wanna look at pictures of her now?

- Yeah.

- Okay, I wanna look at pictures too.

(gentle music) Everybody loved her.

(Daniel vocalizing) I think caregiving is a part of everyone's lives, whether they're going to be a parent or care for an aging parent.

I wanna blur the lines between caregiver and recipient, because we are all a car accident away from relying on this kind of assistance.

(Daniel vocalizing) No one lives in a vacuum.

We all rely on each other for support and so I think everyone should do this kind of work at some point in their life, because you become a better human being.

This is when we went out for her birthday, remember?

This is her big humongous margarita.

(laughing) I love coming to a place and not thinking about myself for eight hours, thinking about other people, and when I see other people doing the work with the same passion and love and care, it affirms that this is where I'm supposed to be today.

Here's your anniversary.

Would you like the staff here to see these pictures and I can let them know that you're celebrating your anniversary?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

I'll do that.

(gentle piano music) - Okay.

Everyone has the strength to help each other wherever we can.

Since I'm able and I'm willing to do this job, I do this job with all my heart, with all my strength.

With you too.

(gentle piano music continues) When you make somebody happy, it makes you happy.

All right, here we are now.

Which way are we going now?

And that's the healing.

When someone is happy, that's the healing from inside.

Don't point that way.

That's somebody's house again.

Look at you.

(Daniel laughing) (Daniel vocalizing) Yeah, let's go for shower.

(voices speaking faintly in background) I like Dan so much.

When I don't go to work, I feel like there's something I'm missing.

We miss each other.

And when I come to Dan, when Dan sees me, he's happy, I'm happy.

I hug him, so we happy.

Are you okay, Danny?

- Yeah.

- Yes.

Now you gonna sleep nice and good.

(device clunking) - Hey.

- Yes, what's up, Danny?

- Help.

- Help you?

- Bye.

- Bye?

(Daniel vocalizing) Monday.

Monday?

What you talking about?

What do you want to say?

(Daniel vocalizing) I don't know.

(Daniel vocalizing) This one?

The pillow?

- No.

- Blanket?

- Ball.

- The ball?

- No.

- No, Dan, I don't know what you're talking about, I'm sorry.

- Ball.

- The chair, okay.

You want me to charge your device?

- Yeah.

- Oh, come on!

(laughing) I will do that before I go, okay?

- Yeah.

- Thank you, Dan.

- Yeah.

- Okay, bye, now.

- Bye.

- Yes, have a good night.

(bright music) (birds chirping) (Daniel vocalizing) - Are you excited today, Dan?

- Yeah.

(crowd chattering) (bright music continues) - And you see with me today, my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans here today together saying there is more that we need to do to make sure that the people who care for people with disabilities are being paid a fair and living wage, to make sure that we all in Minnesota have the ability to live the life of our choosing with freedom, with dignity, and with choice.

(crowd applauding) With choice.

(bright music continues) - My younger sister lives in a group home in Brooklyn Center and she's been blind since birth.

I know how hard this work is and I just first wanna express gratitude for all of you who are caregivers- - Yeah.

- For taking good care of my family member and the family members that you take care of.

(bright music continues) - There's not gonna be a cure.

There's only gonna be care for people, and whether you are born with a disability, or whether you have an acquired disability- - Yes.

- The need is high and we, for the first time in history, people are living longer with disabilities and the care need is just gonna go higher and higher and higher and higher and greater and greater.

- About six years ago, I had a traumatic brain injury and I had to learn how to walk and talk and read and write, and just navigating the whole system as someone who is supposed to be able to navigate the system was really challenging.

(bright music continues) - Hey, good afternoon.

- How nice.

- Good afternoon.

- Good afternoon.

- Really good to see you.

- This is a group from Living Well Disability Services.

- All right, welcome, everyone.

- As an organization, we serve about 300 people with disabilities.

We employ about 500.

The majority of those folks are our frontline workers that we call DSPs or direct support professionals.

Despite investments in the last couple years, our folks are are still, our services are still underfunded.

- Yeah.

- It's more than 10% underfunded.

- Your rates are set by the state.

- Yeah, rates rates are entirely set set by the legislature and that has, I think it's no surprise, has made it more difficult to find staff, even more difficult to keep the staff.

We need people.

It's truly the only product in our industry is time, staff time, and without a wage that we can pay our staff, our folks don't have the supports that they deserve.

- Yeah.

- A lot of us have to do two, three jobs, I believe.

Most of us sitting around this table are doing two, three jobs just to kind of make a livable income.

- I think we're becoming a dinosaur gradually feeding away- - Yeah.

- With the way we're going now, finding people to work, it's very difficult.

- It truly is a house of cards that will topple if we don't fund this thing.

- It's gotta do it.

- Yep.

- What's the alternative?

- Yeah.

- There's there's not a lot of choice.

I know budgets are tied.

- You don't wanna go back to the state institutions of the past.

- Honestly, I mean, that's what our hospitals are turning into right now.

- Yeah.

- You're right.

There isn't an alternative here.

(Daniel vocalizing) - Dan likes to, Dan always kind of wanted to know that the individuals that work with him, obviously he think they deserve more wage, he always speak highly of that, and so he's looking at Dolphine, who is his DSP worker.

- Dan's an artist.

He's a fantastic artist and sells a fair amount of his work.

That's one of his cards.

- Yeah.

- Okay.

- That's something Dan did.

He's a businessman.

- He sees some blank walls in here, so that's what it is.

- Dan is a business guy, obviously.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) (Daniel vocalizing) - My name is Dan.

I am an artist.

(gentle music) (ramp clattering) (seat belts clunking) - You wanna show people your paints?

- Yeah.

- See what you do at work.

- I have cerebral palsy and so did my wife, Sally.

We were married for 35 years, but now she is with God.

- Fantastic.

- Yes.

- Good to see you again.

- Yeah.

- You're one of the artists too?

- Paintings look great.

- Train tracks.

- People have been waiting for you to come.

- Yeah.

- They look so good.

Are you excited?

- Buy.

- Buy one.

(laughing) (gentle music) - I have my blue days, but I have wonderful people that help me every day.

I love them as my brothers and sisters.

- Hello, Dan.

How are you doing?

(laughing) (Daniel vocalizing) This looks great in here.

(attendees chatting in background) - Yeah, this is great.

(attendees chatting in background) - Excuse me, please.

- How are you doing?

- Excuse me.

(laughing) Dolphine.

What do you mean?

(laughing) I didn't know, wow.

I'm excited to see this.

- That was all Dan.

Beautiful.

- Thank you so much.

Love them.

- I want people to know what it is like to live in a wheelchair.

I want the people to know that I think and that I feel.

I want the people to know that I have a good life.

(Daniel vocalizing) - So, you have a good life?

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- It looks like it.

(Daniel laughing) (bright music) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) (bright music continues)