Issue Brief The Need for Centers for Independent Living

The Problem enters for Independent Living (CIL) play a vital role in helping people with all sorts of Ccreate and live the life they desire. In Colorado, there are 10 CILs that are federally and/or state certifi ed by the Rehabilitation Services Administration or the state Division of Vocational Rehabilitation (DVR). All ten receive a mix of state and federal and private funding. The CILs face the following challenges in Colorado:

• Inadequate fi nancial support with less than $4 million total in funding • Minimal meaningful oversight at the state level • No representation in state level planning activities on issues • No leadership to assist CILs in tracking service data consistently across the centers • Lack of oversight and technical assistance to improve service delivery

While the State focuses efforts on persons with mental health needs and individuals with intellectual disabilities, individuals with other disabilities often do not receive proper supports and advocacy. Most of these individuals could live independently and work with the training, , and benefi ts planning services that are offered by CILs. Persons miss out on the that enables individuals with disabilities to see others who are working, having families and participating in the community. Without these opportunities, people with disabilities can remain trapped in poverty, believing they have little to no talents to contribute.

The Independence Center in Colorado What are Centers for Independent Living? Springs CILs, are non-residential organizations that The Independence Center (The IC) is a Center seek to empower others with disabilities for Independent Living located in Colorado through information, role modeling and an Springs. The IC serves El Paso, Teller, Park, understanding of our civil rights. Working with Lincoln, Cheyenne and Kit Carson counties. our consumers and community partners, we The IC started as a home health agency in tackle and lowered expectations 1987 by a woman who is a quadriplegic so that wherever we fi nd them. The goal is to make she could live in the community; it became Colorado barrier free where all may receive a Center for Independence in 1994. The an , work, play, and participate in Center’s mission: Working with people with community activities together. Accessible, disabilities, their families and the community, affordable housing, transportation, and personal we create independence so that all may thrive. assistance in the home have been the top The CIL provided services to 633 people while advocacy issues. Additional advocacy is needed Home Health/Home and Community Based in education, effective communication access Services program served 230 people in 2014. for the Deaf community, changing employers’

729 South Tejon Street, Colorado Springs, CO 80903 | 719-471-8181 | the-ic.org 1 attitudes, and emergency planning efforts across Independent Living Philosophy the state. The Independent Living Philosophy is the Centers for Independent Living are required to belief that people with disabilities are the best provide fi ve core services under Title VII of the experts on their needs. Individuals must have Rehabilitation Act: the freedom to make choices and the ability to live and work in the community in a life of their 1. Information and Referral: Access to design. Persons with disabilities are not clients information and referral services is essential who must be taken care of by professionals for people with disabilities. Achieving who advise what is best for them. Instead, they independence often requires involvement are consumers of services who make informed of a variety of agencies and community decisions on the goals they want to achieve. organizations. CILs help provide the disability community 2. Advocacy: Advocacy support to individual with the tools needed to achieve those goals. consumers is critically important. Key to According to the philosophy, people with this process is empowering consumers to disabilities must take the initiative, individually act on their own behalf and resist accepted and collectively, in designing and promoting norms of dependency. In addition we work better solutions and organizing themselves for on systems change (e.g., lifts on buses and creating change. accessible buildings) together so that our community environment is accessible to History of the Center for Independent Living people with disabilities. Movement 3. Peer Counseling: By virtue of their disability-related experience, people with The history of the Independent Living disabilities are uniquely qualifi ed to assist Movement is closely tied to the civil rights their own peers. A peer counselor, or peer movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Both advocate, who has achieved independence movements confronted the same essential and community integration, shares issues - people who were different because knowledge and experiences. of the color of their skin, their nationality, 4. Independent Living Skills Training: Skills gender, or physical/mental disabilities were development is an important feature of marginalized by bigotry, discrimination, poverty, achieving or enhancing an independent life. isolation, dependency, and pity. For people Learning to cook from a , using with disabilities there was the added burden of the public transit system, fi nding and learning lowered expectations and a “let us take care to use accessible technology are all examples of you because you can’t” belief by society at of IL skills training. large which was, and still is, a huge barrier to 5. Transition Services: The newest core independence and respect. service requires CILs to work to transition people with disabilities that desire to live In the late 1960’s Berkeley students with severe in the community out of institutions, work disabilities organized into a group known as to keep people who are at risk out of The Rolling Quads. The residents developed institutions, and work with young adults to a sense of unity and confi dence as they lived transition from school to work. in close, continuing contact with each other.

729 South Tejon Street, Colorado Springs, CO 80903 | 719-471-8181 | the-ic.org 2 They became more aware that control over CILs also believe in the right to risk taking and their lives had been taken over by medical and the right to fail as part of the learning process. rehabilitation professionals. Students drew on Through peer support, people learn from each their own experience to develop a philosophy other how to problem solve and live more of independent living. The students believed independently. that they didn’t need to change; rather the environment and the attitudes toward persons The Independent Living model sees people with disabilities needed to change. They exerted with disabilities as the solution. Through peer pressure on the university to become more support, advocacy, skills training, information and accessible and to provide funding for a student referral, and transition services, more than 600 organization to work for removal of barriers and CILs across the country now provide services support services, including Personal Attendant to hundreds of thousands of people with Services on campus. This self-help movement disabilities each year. would go on to radicalize how people with disabilities perceived themselves. The Disability Rights and Independent Living Movements have transformed American society. After establishing the campus organization, the We must be vigilant to continue education same group of students realized the need for and outreach and to inform policy makers to an off campus, community-based organization. expand supports to persons with disabilities In 1972, with minimal funding, the Berkeley CIL for independence and opportunity. Living and was started. The core values of the Berkeley CIL, working in the community means a higher dignity, peer support, consumer control, civil quality of life, cost savings and tax payments. rights, integration, equal access, and advocacy, Institutionalization and relying on Social Security remain at the heart of the independent living and payments is costly to the taxpayer and keeps disability rights movements. individuals trapped in poverty.

The creation of the Berkeley Center started Relationship Between Centers for a national movement. In 1978 the federal Independent Living and Vocational Programs Rehabilitation Act was amended to include Title VII, which for the fi rst time provided federal For many people, including people with funding for the development of a national disabilities, having a job is key to self-suffi ciency, network of Centers for Independent Living. A social connection, and other opportunities. series of landmark court decisions, along with Once employed, workers with disabilities sustained advocacy by people with disabilities strengthen the economy. However, the have further supported civil rights including: employment rate for Colorado residents with disabilities is 43.5 percent compared • The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 with a rate of 83.5 percent for residents • The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act without disabilities. Disability and of 1975 unemployment have been linked historically. • The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 People with all kinds of disabilities can succeed • The Supreme Court’s Olmstead decision in in the workplace if they have appropriate 1999 education, training, technology, access, and necessary accommodations.

729 South Tejon Street, Colorado Springs, CO 80903 | 719-471-8181 | the-ic.org 3 The CILs and DVR share the same goal - A Real Success Story assisting the individual to become more independent including working. The two A young woman was referred to The organizations must effectively work together IC in September 2014 and we began with the consumer to achieve his/her goals. by interviewing her to determine work While DVR provides the employment-related experience, desired career path, work services, the Centers for Independent Living ethic, and goals. We updated her resume provide the supports such as fi nding housing, and provided classes on how to dress and learning transit, and peer support that people conduct herself in an interview. She visited need to have in place before going to work. The IC weekly to monitor job postings. Each system offers individuals different The IC received a call from a plumbing knowledge, perspective and skills, which work company about an opening and our staff together so that the consumer can successfully immediately set up an interview for her. live independently and work. Finally, staff The IC staff contacted DVR to set up a members working at CILs are role models; most “paid work experience.” She was eventually are persons with disabilities who are working, hired as a permanent employee and The IC living, and socializing in the community. They continues to provide the support she needs demonstrate the possibilities that exist for to maintain her position. This young woman persons with disabilities. has a paycheck, independence, and a pride in her accomplishments that would not A CALL TO ACTION have been possible without the relationship between DVR and The IC. Services provided by Colorado’s ten Centers for Independent Living help ensure the rights of people with disabilities and create a substantial The Independence Center is one of the ten ILCs in return on public investment. Given the critical Colorado and is located in Colorado Springs. The role played by the CILs, we are calling for a IC serves El Paso, Teller, Park, Lincoln, Cheyenne stronger IL system in Colorado through: and Kit Carson counties. In addition to providing Independent Living Services in the community, The • Increased funding Independence Center also operates a Home Health • A location in state government that can lead program, funded by Medicaid that allows us to us forward as a system toward improved pay for personal services in the home to prevent services and consistent data on outcomes institutionalization. • Leadership who can adequately represent the CILs in state planning efforts

This will take an investment of state funds to strengthen this natural, community-based resource for persons with disabilities. Failure to embark on strengthening the CIL system in Colorado will leave a large number of people with disabilities stranded in front of their mailbox, waiting for a government check, and believing they have no talents to offer.

729 South Tejon Street, Colorado Springs, CO 80903 | 719-471-8181 | the-ic.org 4