This is a series of graphics promoting the Disability Integration Act, an important piece of legislation in the United States right now, that is not getting anywhere near enough support. From the Disability Integration Act website:
The Disability Integration Act (DIA) is civil rights legislation, introduced by Senator Schumer in the Senate and Representative Sensenbrenner in the House, to address the fundamental issue that people who need Long Term Services and Supports (LTSS) are forced into institutions and losing their basic civil rights. The legislation (S.910, H.R.2472) builds on the 25 years of work that ADAPT has done to end the institutional bias and provide seniors and people with disabilities home and community-based services (HCBS) as an alternative to institutionalization. It is the next step in our national advocacy after securing the Community First Choice (CFC) option.
Credit for most of these goes to Cal Montgomery. His dogs Murdo and Erastus are featured too. Image descriptions are in the alt and description tags, the captions contain my personal responses to each graphic.
What I like about these is they show how simple and normal it is, what disabled people want. And they have adorable animals on them, and draw parallels with the actual lives of the animals, and people care about animals. They might see things about disabled people they wouldn’t otherwise see without the analogies being made. For real.
But seriously my favorite is the one about being able to poop whenever I want. That one really encapsulates why it’s important that I stay in my own home, and why making me move to someone else’s home is unreasonable, cruel, criminal, and a whole host of other choice words.
And yet disabled people and elderly people are expected to not only accept restrictions on our freedom, but to do so gracefully and without complaint. In fact, the more readily we accept these things, the more we are praised. And then we lose our freedom.
And usually we die faster too. Not that anyone notices. They think we die because we’re elderly or disabled. Actually, lifespans (along with various other measures of physical and mental ability) for various disabilities have had to actually be updated over the years entirely because of fewer of us living in institutions. Institutions kill people faster. All institutions, whether large state institutions or small nursing homes. They reduce our lifespan and nobody notices or cares. That’s not the only reason they’re bad, but it gives the lie to the idea that they’re really there to “protect our safety”.
There is nothing that happens that is good in an institution that can’t be done, and done better, outside of one.
There is a lot that happens in institutions that is bad and doesn’t need to happen at all.
There is nothing that happens in institutions that is special to institutions, good, and requires an institution in order for it to happen. Anything you hear different is a lie used to keep institutions open.
Institutions are our modern equivalent of Victorian workhouses.
Workhouses were institutions for poor people. Think the sort of thing Charles Dickens wrote about. They had terrible living conditions and people died in them. Many poor people would rather die than go to the workhouse, just as many disabled people would rather die, live on the streets, or go to jail than end up in an institution. People considered workhouses necessary. People considered workhouses natural. They were neither one. These days, people consider workhouses an atrocity and a thing of the past.
But we still have institutions for disabled people, and they are everywhere. Some of them are large and obvious, others are hidden in plain sight. But all contain the same thing: A power structure that puts administrators on top, direct support staff in the middle, and disabled people at the bottom. If you want to know how institutional something is, follow self-advocacy leader Roland Johnson’s advice and ask the question “Who’s in charge?”
Also, anything that requires a disabled person to move out of our own home — even if it’s “just” moving into the home of an existing staff person — and gives no option for the disabled person to get the same help in the home we already live in, shows that something is institutional in nature. Even if it’s entirely “community-based” otherwise. Real community-based services let you live wherever you want to live.
And there are institutional-style services that masquerade as community-based services and get funding through home and community-based services (HCBS) waivers. Even some that let you stay in your own home. If living in a system seems more like a dystopia than it ought to, chances are thre are at least institutional elements. It’s plenty possible to have an institution where each person lives in their own home but it’s otherwise run like any other institution.
At any rate, all of this is very important, and I love these graphics. And definitely tell people about the Disability Integration Act and give them the link to the Disability Integration Act website. Which is http://www.disabilityintegrationact.org/
