Top 10 Ways To Ruin A Center For Independent Living

1. Make sure the founders are people with backgrounds in Special Education, Social Services, and other helping professions, people who have never faced discrimination as a person with a disability, fought back, and moved ahead with their lives. Once the founders agree upon an organizational direction, survey the group to see if anybody is willing to confess to having
a disability. If not, find some mild mannered people with disabilities to comprise a majority of the board. You are on your way to establishing an embarrassment to the independent living movement.

2. Hire an Executive Director with a background and mindset developed in the social service/human service arena, who has notexperienced discrimination as a person with a disability, fought back, and moved ahead with his/her life. He or she will have
no problem taking your CIL down the path of social services.

3. When hiring Independent Living Specialists, Peer Counselors, Program Directors, etc., make sure you require a college degree-BA, MA, BS, etc. Ignore the fact that advocacy and peer support are nurtured in personal experiences, not college classrooms. Exactly what degrees are relevant to advocacy and peer support? Here's a hint, NONE. As you set up these artificial barriers, you are eliminating a vast pool of qualified applicants with disabilities who never graduated from college, and in many situations, never attended any college. What sort of degrees does ADAPT require to participate in an action?

4. Provide minimal reasonable accommodations. Provide what ADA requires-interpreters, alternative formats, etc. If an applicant or employee needs a Personal Assistant on the job, make them pay for it. If you look hard enough, you can probably find a justification in Title I of the ADA to deny staff members PAs as an accommodation. You have effectively eliminated
some of the most severely disabled applicants from working for you.

5. Ignore the history and the wisdom of Ed Roberts and the original CIL at Berkeley. One of his great statements was that independent living should focus on "Advocacy, Advocacy, and Advocacy, but not necessarily in that order". He understood that issues facing people with disabilities are sociological, political, cultural, and economic. Hence, so are the battles.

6. Confuse advocacy with education. Understand that "advocacy won't work in this community", as we have all been told. If you simply tell people what they are required to do, they will do it. Education is not advocacy. Wash your hands and believeyou've met your obligation. Advocacy basically amounts to having an active role in holding your community accountable for removing barriers that inhibit full and equal participation by people with disabilities. CIL STAFF ARE PAID TO BE ADVOCATES.
Nobody else is going to hold your community accountable. Additionally, of course, advocacy is relevant to focusing on changing legislation, policies, and practices that tend to limit persons with disabilities in their pursuit of independence.

7. Pursue funding that tends to inhibit advocacy and compromise independent living philosophy. Take lots of corporate money,let them stamp their corporate logo on your programs or projects. Don't concern yourself with whether or not the corporation violates the rights of persons with disabilities. Don't think in terms of growth in the context of the rich history and traditions of the founders of the independent living movement, just grow and increase that budget.

8. Believe that our civil rights will take care of themselves. In 1977 the battle was to get the regulations implementing section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act finalized and published. That battle was won. However, section 504 never was pushed by advocates once the regulations were signed. Getting legislation and regulations passed is step one, holding covered entities accountable is equally important. Covered entities are not going to gleefully comply with our civil rights laws.

9. As Executive Director, blame your board, your staff, or any other scapegoat for ruining your CIL. The Executive Director is the key person in a CIL. The Executive Director must have a good grasp of the rich history and philosophy of the independent living movement. The Executive Director must be able to persuade the board of what does and does not fit within a CIL. Persuade your board, confront your board, and, if necessary, bring in help from other CILs to meet with your board.

10. Don't share these ten items with your staff or board.