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Guadalupe House provides accommodation, comfort and support for men with disabilities. Administered by The Mother of God Brothers of selfless dedication this remarkable place is in every sense of the word a community. Men tend to a wide variety of activities, from stacking wood for the kitchen fire to tending to the rearing of chickens and the like. However in his wisdom and citing numerous problems, such as the state of the buildings, the Bishop of Wagga, Bishop Gerard Hanna, has decreed that Guadalupe House must close by the middle of next year.

When you talk to Brother Denis Devich, the superior of the Mother of God Brothers, you can feel his deep sadness knowing the community will be disbanded, though he tries not to show it. His workload is enormous, working over 100 hours a week. Still he has a smile for everyone and his ability to empathise with people of various intellectual disabilities is truly inspirational.

Such is the shortage of accommodation that they are being moved wherever accommodation can be arranged. Two men ended up in Deniliquin, others in Wollongong and elsewhere.

Others will end up in nursing homes.

Borderline remembers a man just up the road. A so-called progressive government claimed that placing people in housing commission flats and the like was an essential outcome for such people. He died alone in his small boarding house room in a pool of blood after haemorrhaging from advanced lung cancer. Independent living they called it.

The trouble is that in many instances these people do end up emotionally and geographically isolated. That's why in many instances 'independent living' means being marooned in an uncaring world, forgotten by society, marginalised by the statistical interpretations of governments spinning their way out of their neglect of such people with new 'initiatives' and a latest study to address the issue.

Even President Regan had some sympathy for similar ideological and social outcomes, though he was a bit more zealous about it. He simply opened the doors of institutions, with little or no support for those who'd been thrown on the streets. Let the mad out - the ultimate freedom to wander the streets, live in cardboard boxes. What chance did they have? Leave it to charitable institutions and other welfare organisations.

All for their own good, of course. With all the departments, and their political masters there has to be a certain spin on things to reassure the public, the voters, with their new initiatives. Just like Bob Hawke said in 1987, 'that by 1990 no child would be living in poverty'. Bob was fair-dinkum, or his speechwriter was. Maybe they both were. Now child poverty will get even worse as the world suffers a financial meltdown and everyone scurries for cover to protect their little nest eggs.

Originally Guadalupe House was an orphanage built in 1882. It was an austere place. Borderline remembers it as a place where people went for 'retreats', where silence was mandatory, and where those of the Catholic faith would reflect on the nature of their spiritual lot. It was called St John's Orphanage. I wonder where all those orphans went. I never did hear of them having a reunion.

In 1978 the Mother of God Brothers took over the orphanage and they turned it into a Catholic Community for intellectually disadvantaged men. Then it was surrounded by open space, a place of fields. Over 70 priests, nuns and orphans are buried beside it. An interesting aspect of this graveyard is its hierarchical nature, the nuns' perceived subordination to priests and how they were memorialised. The nuns, in those days, were only permitted to build small, modest plaques horizontal to the ground. The Priests, on the other hand, were allowed more splendid, vertical structures, testifying to their lives of holiness.

The place has a lot of history. In those days the orphanage was surrounded by a lot of land, 10 acres or more, enough room for a cow or a 100 or whatever, but lots of building blocks which the church decided to sell. Why the church didn't direct some of this money towards a long term plan to secure the future of Guadalupe House remains a point of conjecture, and to many a point of anger.

Ironically the money that was obtained from the sale of the land went to Wagga Dioceses to prop up the seminary. They produced one priest.

Built in 1882 the building is in a state of disrepair, but still very solid. Beyond that it's also an uplifting experience to visit the place, because it really is a community. But the incapacity of the Catholic Church to address problems concerning maintenance and allowing the building to fall into disrepair has left a lot of Catholics and other members of the community greatly distressed. It is in itself an example of how organisations make their decisions that in the long run disadvantage those who they are supposed to serve.