Category: Daily Living
I am considering attending the Colorado Center for the Blind (CCB) and am wondering if anyone here on the Zone has attended? Did you have good experiences there, and how did you get vocational rehab to help you attend if you were out of state? Also, has anyone here moved to the Denver area after completing training at CCB? I am thinking about attending university there after my training at the center is finished due to a degree program I am seeking there, so there is a possibility I would be moving there permanently after I finish at the center.
Also, do you find public transportation (buses, light rail, etc.) to be good there, and is the area generally pedestrian friendly? Is the area affordable as far as apartments, etc?
Any advice or experiences about the center specifically or the Denver area in general would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.
I live in Denver, but have never went to the center, so I can't tell you about that.
Transport is good, and this city is blind friendly.
I have no problem traveling 24 hours a day if I desire depending on where I want to go.
The center is located in Littleton, so not exactly Denver, but still transport is great.
I think Littleton is a nice city and a nice place to live as well, but I live in Denver currently.
Now, as far as affordable, that is a difficult question to answer.
We have low income places, and we have low cost rent places. We also have expensive places.
How much money you have and where you decide you want to live, how you budget your funds, and many other factors make a city livable.
I think it is easy to live here, affordable, and such things, but others will disagree with me.
If I wanted to move here I'd apply for rehab before I left, and have my plan at the center set up so I could tell them exactly what I was doing.
I think a well rounded plan will make the difference.
This is my opinion and what I've done to live easy.
A blind person has several tools that can be used, and the Center should tell you about these.
Thanks,
I have heard from many that the transportation in the Denver Area is very good, and I have also been doing some research on the RTD website. This sounds like it might be the type of transportation that I am looking for, because where I live currently, transportation is not very good at all on weekends, and also even during the week the buses don't run as often, and there is only one center downtown to transfer, so no matter where you are going, you have to go all the way downtown to transfer to the desired bus, and if your first bus is late, since all buses leave the transfer center all at the same time, then you have to wait another 30 minutes to an hour, depending on whether it is weekday or weekend, to catch the next bus. I guess it is a good system for this city being that it is a smaller city, but I think living in a bigger city with a better system will work so much better for me, especially since I am usually juggling my daughter's school and my school, which is difficult to do here due to the transportation system. I am also looking for a bigger city where there may be more opportunities for employment as well as to finish my degree.
I feel that going to the center at CCB may also help me to improve any skills that I am lacking in or even learn new ones. All around, the Denver area sounds good, but I guess I am still looking into it more to make sure. I am definitely looking to move to a larger city, though, even if I decided that the center was not a good fit for me, but it sounds like it just may.
I willl be attending the center soon myself and am very excited!!
That is great. I hope it goes well for you. I am still in the planning and researching stage, so it could be about a year before I do attend if I decide to. I haven't even brought it up with vocational rehab/DSB yet, because I want to make sure I have all of the information needed to make an informed decision. Also, I have to open my case again. I am attending school now getting my associates degree in order to transfer to a university to get a bachelors in education, but I would like to go to the center to get better independence and job-related skills after completing my associates degree and then finish my bachelors degree after completing training at the center.
I hope the center goes well for you and that you like it and get beneficial skills from the training.
Jobs will be just like all other places. We only have so many jobs for blind people. Once they are filled they are filled.
Now that isn't to say it is impossible, it isn't, but Denver isn't the promise land.
Now, for school, it is great. You will find that all universities and even city college will have a good and reliable department for you. You will find money to go as well, and rehab will work for you if you have a plan.
We have many tools as I said to make your life easier, such as, getting an accessa ride pass. This will give you free transportation on all things RTD, you can use the Access A Ride, door to door service for currently 4.50 per ride, and you can use all taxi services for a discounted fair.
That tool can work for you period. We have others as well.
Yes, I understand that Denver is like any other place job-wise, but I think moving to a larger city would help somewhat in having better transportation to actually look for and get to and from work reliably as well as being able to get my daughter to school or where she needs to go and be able to do everything in a timely/efficient manner. Where I currently live, it can be quite difficult because of the smaller transportation system here. Of course, if I didn't find a job there, I would look elsewhere, but I think it is difficult to tell whether you will get a job or not just by initially looking into a certain city, and things change too over time, so it is hard to tell until you start job hunting.
All true. You'll find resources to support you and your daughter until you can get something on your own as well.
I know what you would like, but in the mean time, you can live comfortable, and your daughter can get what is required for you to support her well.
It is my opinion that any city can be lived in if you are willing to learn how and to manage your life.
You do as you are doing, some research, then after you get to that city, you ask questions of the people that live there, and you make it like a job to apply for all services you can get to support you and your daughter.
After you are settled, you continue to look for other ways to help you and your family.
I again say, Denver is an easy place to live if you are willing to do what is required to live here.
You seem like you're starting out on a good foot. Smile.
I don't know your daughters age, but you can get day care for her as well, so you can do the things you need to do.
Denver and outlter areas have good schools as well. Most of the students walk to school, but for these that can't we have school buses.
Walk your daughter to where she needs to go, or put her on the bus, it can be done.
Some will say, oh, that won't work, or that isn't available, but I tell you it is for the person with a goal, a plan, and the willingness to as twice.
It is my strong opinion that life comes down to management, just like any business. You can manage well on a small amount of money, or you can blow a large amount and not have a thing. I've seen people do this.
I have lived in other cities as well, and I find my thoughts to work no matter where I was. People live in that city, the poor, the middle and the wealthy, so there is a way, you just need to know how. Smile.
That is all very true, and I have found it to work for me too in cities I have lived in.
Come on then. Smile.
Try not to rely too heavily on attitude and perseverance alone. I sometimes think that we as blind people are taught to over-emphasize the intangible, mental strategies and emotions related to pragmatic aspects of life with which others might not always concern themselves as readily. Certainly if one goes to a center with a specific objective in place such as learning to make their favorite dishes, the outgrowth of that specificity can be measured in physical results. Yet I think that there are many instances where we want things to mean much more than the sum of their parts. The fact that a person is being taught to make chicken isn't just an end game by itself. All of a sudden, the successfully fried bird (which was accomplished through the efforts of the student) is given entirely too much significance as an intangible building block of foundational self esteem and assertiveness in other parts of existence. Our canes aren't just travel aids anymore. They become passports to the world, reflecting the confidence and sure-footedness of the person on the opposite end of the tip. I guess what I am saying is that if you are going there to master specific skills, allow those improvements to simply stand alone without attaching a synergistic set of emotions to the eventual outgrowth of your ability.
This is why the psychology and the social services language is very rambly and difficult to understand, to me at least. I mean, I couldn't have come up with half that shit when I used to get high. It's weird. It's always been weird to me, even when I was a kid: no more and no less than the zealous religious types making things up out of thin air.
Cheers to a pragmatic, objectivist existence.
I attended and graduated from CCB years ago. My experiences with it then were good, but that was very shortly after the current director took over. Since then, I have watched CCB steadily and markedly decline, to the point now where I would not recommend them to people anymore.
I did not live in Colorado when I attended, and I did get my state rehab agency to pay for it. I simply found all the things CCB did that my state rehab agency did not, such as a lot of the activities. I also pointed out the superior transit and ability to travel in the city that my state rehab agency doesn't have where it's located. So talk to CCB, talk to your state orientation center, and find out there differences. Then when you write your justification letter, hit on all the things CCB can offer you that your state center cannot, and why you need those things to get the most out of your training.
I lived in Denver for quite a few years, and miss it something fierce. I was not impressed with rehab services out there, but I absolutely loved the transportation, the weather, and people were friendly too. I wanted to go back to college while I was there, and so did some research, and found several schools that looked good. Of course it's not perfect, but I'd like to move back to Denver someday if I can.
Thank you Sister Dawn for your advice about CCB. I have been reading over the Regional Transportation District's site, which is the transit system there, and I like the way it is laid out, the features of it, and how they send out alerts to let riders know about detours and route changes. I also like the fact that it runs 24 hours. I have been doing research on many different cities that were said to have good transportation, but Denver seems to be the best I have found so far other than places in the Northeastern part of the U.S.
If you don't mind me asking, what part of the CCB has declined and how do you think it has declined? How does it compare now to what you experienced before?
Thank you.
I echo the last part of the last post. I, too, am considering attending CCB. I have a friend who graduated from there recently, and he was adamant that the "rumors", as he said, that CCB is declining are basically a load of crap. If you would rather PM me with the details, that would be understandable. I've just been hearing some conflicting things. Several people have told me that LCB is the best of the three NFB centers. However, they're people I've spoken with on email lists. this guy who was so enthusiastic about CCB has been a friend of mine for several years, and I tend to put a bit more stock in what people I know in real life say about things. However, I'm also reasonable enough to realize that the evidence I've been receiving tends to come down on the side of LCB.
I think a person gets what they want from a center.
I've known some that graduated that just were not par, and others that were better, so I guess it depends, but she is right to ask these that have gone.
I have not.
I agree that you get what oou want to get out of a center. I haven't heard any rumors as of yet except for the post here saying CCB has declined, but most things I have heard were good. I like CCB so far because of the transportation in the area as well as the climate. I am not sure if it is the same at LCB or not as far as public transit around that area in Ruston, LA where LCB is. I am not sure what the differences are between the centers, though.
MDN and GreenTurtle, just a note to say I've seen your questions, and I'll answer them. I'm currently working on writing out why I think it's declined and put it into the best words, and will either post here or PM you guys yet today. As far as LCB, I know very little about it. From what I've been told, Ruston is a very small town that doesn't have squat for public transportation. I believe they take students into bigger cities to get experience with that. But you'd have to talk to someone who has gone there.
Yes, that is what I have heard too from someone who grew up in Louisiana and who has friends that went there. If I did go to a center though, I would need good transportation around so that I could easily get my daughter to school and go places with her, so that is an important factor both in attending a center and also in choosing where I want to live. Walkability is important also, because I have lived in places that are not very walkable or don't have a lot of sidewalk, so being in a place that is walkable and pedestrian friendly is important to me.
It would be interesting to know how CCB has declined, though, so I will know both sides of the issue, because I want to be sure I am making the best decision if I plan to attend CCB.
I've actually thought about moving to the Denver area over the years, but I don't think the coincidental fact that I was born there is really a good enough reason to dust Idaho off my heels and hightail it to Denver even if I could afford to LOL.
I attended LCB, and can say that Ruston is a small town, with everything within walking distance, or easy access to cabs.
The biggest difference between the two is deffinetly the environments from what I have heard from those who attended CCB. Someone told me this, if you want to walk, go to LCB. If you want to take public transit everywhere, go to CCB. Lol. i'm sure even though they are both NFB centers, they both have other differences as well. Either way you decide you will get important skills that you will hopefully decide to keep with you for the rest of youur life, and you will find what is best for you.
Lots of things you can walk to in Littleton if you want. It is not necessary to take the bus all the time.
Oh I'm sure there is plenty of places to walk to. But the difference between there and Ruston as Chelsea said is we had to drive either 40 minutes to Monroe, and even farther to Shreeveport in order to do bus travel lessons. I all ready had experience using public transit previously, but while at the center in Louisiana I think it was only three times I was able to go on a bus travel lesson. From what I hear about Littleton you use buses a lot more.
They are available yes. The light rail station is also near as well.
I could see them training more on the bus.
I sometimes see them downtown traing as well. It is a good, and peaceful place to walk, so you probably get both a training lesson on how to ride the train, and also a bit of traveling and some shopping.
I've attended ccb and it was a good experience overall. You learn how to use buses and light rail as well. You travel using an nfb cane and wearing a sleep shade. You also learn other skills like cooking braille and wood shop. You learn different skills depending on your needs which they evaluate in the first 2 weeks. Once they know what skills you want or need to learn you start taking specific classes after the 2 week period ends. Hope this helps.