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WARNING: This story mentions suicide. <\/p>\n
Two months after Jeremiah Dixon and his family spoke out about a mental health crisis that led to hospital staff sending him to a Halifax homeless shelter,<\/a> the 19-year-old has been approved for disability funding that will allow him to move into his own apartment with one-on-one support.\u00a0<\/p>\n His mother says the decision is a \u201chuge relief,\u201d but it also took years of advocacy, letters from doctors, support from community organizations and speaking publicly about their situation before Dixon was finally accepted into Nova Scotia\u2019s disability support program.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re not alone anymore and he\u2019s going to have support, and we don\u2019t have to remain in this \u2026crisis in our family,\u201d said Kim Dixon, who lives in Dartmouth, N.S.<\/p>\n But Kim said being an advocate on top of a caregiver for Jeremiah, who has fetal alcohol spectrum disorder and borderline personality disorder, has been draining. She worries that other caregivers don\u2019t have the capacity for such efforts.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI knew I had to do it to save him,\u201d she said of her son, who has made multiple attempts to end his life and often disappears at all hours of the night while experiencing mental-health crises.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cCaregiving is hard enough, and so to be able to then take on that battle \u2026 for a lot of people, this isn\u2019t possible.\u201d<\/p>\n Through the disability support program, Jeremiah will now receive funding to pay for an apartment, utilities and groceries.<\/p>\n He\u2019s also been approved to hire a support worker for 106 hours per week to help keep him safe while he works on improving his mental health, finding a job and participating in activities within the community.<\/p>\n The program<\/a> is described by the province as servicing people with \u201cintellectual disabilities, long-term mental illness and physical disabilities in a range of community supported living options and day programs.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The program is currently undergoing a transformation<\/a> to adapt to recommendations from a human rights board of inquiry. Now participants receive individualized funding and have the opportunity to use that money on the service providers of their choosing.<\/p>\n Jeremiah has chosen to work with New Vision Care Homes, a group that his mother said has a comprehensive understanding of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) \u2014 a condition that\u2019s largely misunderstood and overlooked.<\/a><\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1776952931_207_default.jpg\")
Kim Dixon says it’s a ‘huge relief’ her son has finally been approved for disability-related funding through Nova Scotia’s disability support program. (David Laughlin\/CBC)<\/p>\n