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1107
Payne Avenue
Erie, PA 16503
Voice
TTY: 814-874-0064
Fax: 814-874-3497
Toll Free: 1-866-407-0064
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Voices for Independence is a non-profit grassroots advocacy and service organization of and for individuals with disabilities. Voices for Independence was formed by individuals with disabilities who felt that some of the primary disability service providers/organizations in Northwestern Pennsylvania were too paternalistic, lacked true consumer direction and consumer control, and thus were not satisfactorily meeting the needs and concerns of individuals with disabilities in our region. Voices for Independence incorporated in December 1993, and received its non-profit 501(c)(3) status on February 26, 1996. Voices for Independence is comprised of a majority of individuals with disabilities.
The purpose of Voices
for Independence is to empower people with disabilities,
improve the quality, independence, dignity, and control of their lives,
as well as to promote a philosophy of independent living, including a
philosophy of consumer control, peer support, self-help, self-determination,
equal access, and individual and systems advocacy, as well as the integration
and full inclusion of individuals with cross disabilities into the mainstream
of American society.
We
intend to improve our world by:
*
Publishing a quarterly newsletter.
* Promoting the independent living philosophy.
* Creating a resource library.
* Enhancing independent living services.
* Establishing peer counseling.
* Creating educational scholarships.
* Creating a newsletter service for the disability community.
* Creating a speaker's bureau.
* Developing community resources to provide accessibility modifications.
* Developing an equipment exchange loan program.
* Providing individual and systems advocacy.
* Assisting individuals with disabilities to get out of nursing homes.
<<<< Centers for Independent Living in Pennsylvania >>>>
HISTORY OF INDEPENDENT LIVING by Gina McDonald and Mike Oxford
This
account of the history of independent living stems from a philosophy which
states that people with disabilities should have the same civil rights,
options, and control over choices in their own lives as do people with
disabilities.
The history of independent living is closely tied to the civil rights
struggles of the 1950’s and 1960’s among African Americans.
Basic issues--disgraceful treatment based on bigotry and erroneous stereotypes
in housing, education, transportation, and employment--and the strategies
and tactics are very similar. This history and its driving philosophy
also have much in common with other political and social movements of
the country in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. There were
at least five movements that influenced the disability rights movement.
Social Movements
The first social movement was deinstitutionalization, an attempt to move
people, primarily those with developmental disabilities, out of institutions
and back into their home communities. This movement was led by providers
and parents of people with developmental disabilities and was based on
the principle of “normalization” developed by Wolf Wolfensberger,
a sociologist from Canada. His theory was that people with
Developmental disabilities should live in the most “normal”
setting possible if they were to expected to behave “normally.”
Other changes occurred in nursing homes where young people with many types
of disabilities were warehoused for lack of “better” alternatives
(Wolfensberger, 1972).
The next movement to influence disability rights was the civil rights
movement. Although people with disabilities were not included as a protected
class under the Civil Rights Act, it was a reality that people could achieve
rights, at least in law, as a class. Watching the courage of Rosa Parks
as she defiantly rode in the front of a public bus, people with disabilities
realized the more immediate challenge of even getting on the bus.
The “self help” movement, which really began in the 1950’s
with the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous, came into its own in the 1970’s.
Many self-help books were published and support groups flourished. Self-help
and peer support are recognized as key points in independent living philosophy.
According to this tenet, people with similar disabilities are believed
to be more likely to assist and to understand each other than individuals
who do not share experience with a similar disability.
Demedicalization was a movement that began to look at more holistic approaches
to health care. There was a move toward “demystification”
of the medical community. Thus, another cornerstone of independent living
philosophy became the shift away from the authoritarian medical model
to a paradigm of individual empowerment and responsibility for defining
and meeting one’s own needs.
Consumerism, the last movement to be described here, was one in which
consumers began to question product reliability and price. Ralph Nader
was the most outspoken advocate for this movement, and his staff and followers
came to be know as “Nader’s Raders.” Perhaps most fundamental
to independent living philosophy today is the idea of control by consumers
of goods and services over the choices and options available to them.
The independent living paradigm, developed by Gerben DeJong in the late
1970’s (DeJong, 1979), proposed a shift from the medical model to
the independent living model. As with the movements described above, this
theory located problems or “deficiencies” in the society,
not the individual. People with disabilities no longer saw themselves
as broken or sick, certainly not in need of repair. Issues such as social
attitudinal barriers were the real problems facing people with disabilities.
The answers were to be found in changing and “fixing” society,
not people with disabilities. Most important, decisions must be made by
the individual, not by the medical or rehabilitation professional.
Using these principles, people began to view themselves as power and self
–directed as opposed to passive victims, objects of charity, cripples,
or not-whole.
Disability began to be seen as a natural, not uncommon, experience in
life; not a tragedy.
Independent
Living
Ed Roberts is considered to be the “father of independent living.”
Ed became disabled at the age of fourteen as a result of polio. After
a period of denial in which he almost starved himself to death, Ed returned
to school and received his high school diploma. He then wanted to go to
college. The California Department of Rehabilitation initially rejected
Ed’s application for financial assistance because it was decided
that was “too disabled to work.” He went public with his fight
and within one week of doing so, was approved for financial aid by the
state. Fifteen years after Ed’s initial rejection by the State of
California as an individual who was too disabled, he became head of the
California Department of Rehabilitation –the agency that had once
written him off.
After Ed earned his associate’s degree at the College of San Mateo,
he applied for admission to the University of California at Berkeley.
After initial resistance on the part of the university, Ed was accepted.
The university let him use the campus hospital as his dormitory because
there was no accessible student housing (none of the residential buildings
could support the weight of Ed’s 800-lb. iron lung). He received
attendant services through a state program called “Aid to the Totally
Disability.” This a very important note because this was consumer-controlled
personal assistance service. The attendants were hired, trained, and fired
by Ed.
In 1970, Ed and other students with disabilities found a disabled students’
program on the Berkeley campus. His group was called the “Rolling
Quads.” Upon graduation, the “Quads” set their sights
on the need for access beyond the University’s walls.
For
more information, send e-mail to vfi@voicesforindependence.org
or write to:
Voices for Independence
1107 Payne Avenue Erie, PA 16503