Written by: Katie Hunt Thomas
This month, the Ability Center Advocacy Team helped organize legislative meetings for our Ohio Center for Independent Living delegation and presented a workshop at the National Council on Independent Living Conference in Washington, DC. The National Council on Independent Living (NCIL) represents over 1000 Centers for Independent Living across the United States. Every year, NCIL hosts a conference that brings the Centers for Independent Living together to advocate for disability issues on Capitol Hill. For this month’s blog, I would like to share a little of the history and philosophy of Centers for Independent Living like The Ability Center.
The Independent Living Movement
Inspired by the African American Civil Rights Movement, in the 1960s and 70s, people with disabilities began to organize around a set of principles for their own civil rights in the United States. Much like other groups, people with disabilities began to draw attention to unfair practices in housing, education, public transportation, and employment and work towards social change. In 1977, people with disabilities held the largest ever nation-wide sit-in at offices of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare to force the Director of HEW to implement regulations that would make society more accessible to them. In the Denver Bus Protests of 1978, people with disabilities stopped busses with their wheelchairs to draw attention to the fact that busses were inaccessible to them. Out of the movement toward civil rights came the independent living philosophy.
According to the Independent Living philosophy, disability is a societal construct. It is not a disability itself that prevents a person from full access to our society, it is the way that our society interacts with a disability. In one example, a person who uses a wheelchair cannot get a bank loan because the bank has steps leading to its entrance. It is not the person’s disability that prevents them from getting the loan, it is the steps. If the steps are removed, then the person can get a loan. The Independent Living Philosophy is focused around removing those barriers that prevent people with disabilities from being able to fully participate in society. It is focused around the independence, equal access, and self-determination of people with disabilities.
The Beginning of Centers for Independent Living
Centers for Independent Living (CILs) rose out of this movement organically. In 1962, a leader in the disability rights movement, Ed Roberts sued U.C. Berkley to gain admission to their college. Once he gained admission, other people with significant disabilities also enrolled at the college, and they formed a group called the “Rolling Quads.” The Rolling Quads worked together to advocate for Berkley students with disabilities in housing and education. After he graduated, inspired by the Rolling Quads and everything they were able to accomplish, Ed Roberts began the first Center for Independent Living in Berkley, California. Another advocate, Lex Freidan started an Independent Living Center in Texas around the same time. The passage of the Rehabilitation Act in 1975, and its regulations in 1977, created a source of funding for CILs, the National Council on Independent Living, and Statewide Independent Living Councils and led to a nationwide network of CILs all of the country. Here in Ohio, The Ability Center is part of a network that includes 12 CILs and our Ohio Statewide Independent Living Council.
Centers for Independent Living Today
True to our beginnings as a grassroots group of people organizing to help each other and create social change, CILs are consumer-controlled, cross disability non-profits organized around the independent living philosophy. This means that, by statute, a majority of our Board of Directors and employees, including leadership, of each Center for Independent Living must have disabilities. CILs serve any person with a disability regardless of income or other eligibility criteria. While each Center for Independent Living is a little different, each of us must offer information and referral, independent living skills training, peer support, individual and systems advocacy, and transition services – both assisting people in transitioning out of nursing homes and assisting youth in transitioning to employment.
In my experience, CILs are always on the cutting edge of advocacy and providing services for people with disabilities. Because we are run by people with disabilities, CILs are knowledgeable about the issues, compassionate, and eager to help our consumers get what they need. Often, CILs have expertise that no other agency has and, as private agencies, are more nimble than state agencies. Because our focus is supporting any individual with a disability who walks through our door to remain independent in the community, we often fill the gaps of services not being provided elsewhere. Many consumers are repeat consumers – not served once and sent away — but, instead, people who come back for different types of support as their needs change throughout their life.
It is always powerful to see the network of CILs come together in DC for the National Conference. Every year, CIL representatives from every state in the U.S. meet at the NCIL Conference to learn about cutting edge issues and draw attention to the needs of people with disabilities through a march to the U.S. Capitol, rally, and legislative meetings. When I am there, I can see that we are truly a legacy of the disability rights movement, continuing to amplify the voices of those with disabilities in the U.S. and move our country inch by inch toward equal access, independent living, and full participation for those with disabilities in our country.
