about us
independent living
The IL Philosophy can best be explained in two parts. The first part is the belief that a person with a disability has the right to control and direct his/her own life. This person should only be limited in carrying out this right in the same ways that a person without a disability is limited. Controlling and directing one’s own life means making cultural and life style choices from acceptable options. These choices should reduce a person’s physical and/or psychological dependence upon others when making decisions and performing every day activities. It means exercising the greatest possible degree of choice about where to live, with whom to live, how to live, and how to use time. It includes taking risks and having the right to succeed or fail, and taking responsibility for your decisions and actions. Being able to control and direct one’s own life leads to self-determination and independence.
The second part of the IL Philosophy is the belief that a person with a disability has the right to actively participate in all aspects of community life to any extent he/she chooses. This means having opportunities to fulfill a range of social roles, including working, owning a home, raising a family, and engaging in leisure and recreational activities. It also includes asserting one’s rights and fulfilling one’s responsibilities as a citizen.
History of the Independent Living (IL) Movement:
Similar in nature to the Civil Rights Movement of the ‘60s, the IL Movement was begun by people with disabilities who wanted to take control of their own lives. Although there were similar “pockets” of these groups across the country, Berkeley is generally considered the birthplace of the Movement.
Ed Roberts, and several other students with severe disabilities, attended classes at the University of California in Berkeley during the day. Because there was no accessible housing, they were forced to live at the Berkeley campus’s Cowell Hospital. As a result of living in this segregated, caretaker environment, they formed a group called the Rolling Quads and began discussing ways to improve the quality of their lives. They felt that they were “consumers”, not patients, and that they had a right to live in the community like able-bodied people.
This group soon opened a program office, and within a year, off-campus consumers were a sizable proportion of those seeking services. This interest from consumers prompted Roberts and his associates to establish a Center for Independent Living for the community at large. This was the beginning of the CIL model incorporating consumer-control, self-help, self-advocacy and community advocacy as its fundamental principles.
These successful consumer efforts, together with the recognition that services were needed outside the parameters of the traditional Vocational Rehabilitation Program, prompted the addition of Title VII to the Rehabilitation Act. Title VII provides funding for CILs and IL services. Today, over 400 nationwide programs offer a range of IL services to help consumers achieve their goals, including the League for the Blind and Disabled, Inc.
Centers for Independent Living (CILs):
CILs are the primary organizational advocacy and service delivery systems that represent and promote the Independent Living Movement and its Philosophy. Their primary mission is to empower all people with disabilities to live more independently and have control over their lives. CILs are defined, by the Federal Government, as consumer-controlled, community-based, cross-disability, non-residential, private non-profit agencies. They are designed and operated within local communities by people with disabilities and provide a range of services to consumers and the community. Many of these characteristics separate CILs from traditional service delivery programs, so they have been explained below to help you understand the major differences.
Cross-disability: This means that CILs offer and provide their services to people with a range of significant disabilities. They cannot require that people have a specific significant disability in order for them to receive services.
Consumer-controlled: This means that a CIL places authority and power in people with disabilities (consumers). This includes persons who are currently receiving services or who have received services in the past. A CIL’s governing board must have a majority of people with significant disabilities, and its staff, including decision makers, must be made up of a majority of persons with disabilities. Consumers who are served by the CIL make decisions about and control the services they receive and the goals they set. Also, CILs use the concept of consumers assisting other consumers (peer support or role modeling) when providing services, instead of the traditional medical (professional/patient) model of service delivery.
Non-residential: This means that CILs cannot operate or manage housing as a separate service. However, housing can be provided to consumers in order for them to receive another independent living service. It cannot last any longer than eight weeks during any six-month period. Also, if a CIL does provide housing, it must be non-essential to its overall operation.
Community-based: A CIL must be designed and operated by people with disabilities in the local community that it serves. For example, the make-up of its governing board should reflect the composition of the community. Also, the CIL should be involved in and a part of the community it serves, not separate from it. This community involvement is very important because CILs across the nation do not have a single goal or measure of success. Instead, each CIL responds to the unmet needs and goals of its own community. This is done by providing direct services to consumers, referral to other community resources, and community activities that cause physical and attitudinal changes.
