Every time I come back from my Partners in Policymaking class, I have more to share about disability issues and some of the cutting-edge ideas in the needs and care of our largest minority: people with disabilities.

This month our topics were housing and employment. Quite frankly, since LuLu is only 11, I haven’t given that much thought to either of these topics. I can’t see a clear course for her future, so in some ways, I avoid looking ahead. But there are a few things I do know. One, she’ll need to live somewhere and that somewhere will eventually not be with me. And two, she’ll need something to do all day, and preferably that something will involve a paying job that enables her to live independently.

So, this weekend was a time to think outside the box of where parents of adult children with disabilities often think.

Our speaker, Derrick Dufresne of Community Resources Associates, first gave us the history of where adults with disabilities lived in our grandparents times…either at home with their families or in institutions. These two options represent the least restrictive environment and the most restrictive, respectively.

Then, in the 1960s and 1970s the concept of a “group home” began to catch hold. And adults were grouped by their disabilities and sent to live together in one place where they could be cared for. These group homes were not as restrictive as an institution, but still not much was expected of the people who lived there.

Today we have options such as semi-independent living and community living options, where people with disabilities share a small family home, often with the support providers who help them. This provides for even more independence, but with one major potential flaw. If the owner of the living facility decides to change things, he/she can do so at any point. And the person could be without a home.

The goal, as it is with nearly everything in the disability world, is to give people with disabilities the same rights as those without. None of the rest of us are required to move out of our homes because a service provider decided to quit working, or change the way their facility is run. So, Derrick proposed that we think about ways in which people with disabilities could live like the rest of us do…by renting or even owning their own homes.

My mind was working overtime, trying to keep up with all of this, since I really hadn’t given much thought to where Lulu would go. I had not been thinking about a group home, because I just didn’t see this as being integrated in society enough. At the same time, I’m darn sure I don’t want her to continue to live here with us when she’s finished with school. She will need her own life. And eventually, we won’t be around for her to live with any more. At this point we have no idea what support and how much support she will need.

So, Derrick challenged us to think of ways in which our child could be in an independent housing situation, where he/she received the right support needed to be able to live in his/her own home. And he challenged us not to wait to start thinking about this until our children were about finished with high school.


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