CIL Budget Cuts Reversed--Victory in NJ!

Published June 30, 2009 @ 04:00PM PT

Preempting my planned post for this afternoon to give good news for a change regarding state budget cuts! This just hot in my in box from Next Step:

The 200-plus people who rallied in Trenton on May 14 to restore budget cuts to New Jersey Centers for Independent Living can declare victory. All budget cuts have been restored!

This is the first time I've been able to post back with some good news, some positive results of self-advocate efforts to prevent the states from taking away our lifelines. Hopefully this can help encourage us to keep rallying, protesting, calling, and complaining. Keep telling your stories and making it known that it is not OK to balance the budget by taking away people's ability to survive or have any sort of quality of life.

It's hard work, but we still have hope of success, one small bit at a time.

Comments (7)

I work at a CIL out here. This is the first I'd heard of such a thing (and remember, I lived in NJ years ago!) Of course, NCIL, the national association of CILs, just changed management AND had both its policy people leave so far this year.

Do you know of any other people on the spectrum who work in independent living? The only other one I knew of was Steve Drake (who invited me over here, so blame him!), who is now focusing on Not Dead Yet.

It often seems as though the autism community is isolated even from the rest of the disability community. And it need not be so. More and more of the activists I meet who have other disabilities (two in particular paid us a visit last month) are interested in us. And I have never had a problem showing up at a NCIL conference, or or own PacRim conference, sans wheelchair, service animal, travel cane, AAC device, what have you: people seem to pick up on the fact that I'm "one of us"!

Posted by Mark Romoser on 06/30/2009 @ 04:55PM PT
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Then again, at least NJ HAS state funding for centers: something we, for one, can only dream about...

Posted by Mark Romoser on 06/30/2009 @ 04:56PM PT
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Hi Mark--the really bizarre thing about your comment is that the post I was going to make in this slot--and will make tomorrow--is literally about exactly this issue. This issue of the autism community being isolated from the rest of the disability community. Holy psychic stuff, Batman!

Posted by Dora Raymaker on 06/30/2009 @ 09:04PM PT
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Three cheers!

Here's a listing of Independent Living Centers:

http://www.virtualcil.net/cils/query-iandr.php?state=nj

Posted by Kristina Chew on 06/30/2009 @ 05:17PM PT
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Wow! Congratulations to all who rallied and advocated! What great news!

Posted by Twyla Ramos on 06/30/2009 @ 08:03PM PT
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fantastic to get a bit of good news! and ditto congrats to all involved in rallying.

re isolation of autistic community from other disability activists, that is something we are highly aware of over here in Britain, and trying to build links to get over it. There does seem good recognition from some key disability activists here that you don't have to be physically impaired to have a disability and need a different range of support from most people. DAN (Direct Action Network) and RADAR are two organisations which are aware of autistic disabilities, largely because of efforts from individual activists.

Posted by dinah murray on 06/30/2009 @ 11:58PM PT
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WOW. Poltiiians really listening to tbeir constituents. Democracy in action. Love it, love it!:)

Posted by Elise Butowsky on 07/01/2009 @ 04:52AM PT
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Dora is committed to improving quality of life for individuals on the autistic spectrum--including herself! She is Co-director of the Academic Autistic Spectrum Partnership in Research and Education and a member of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network's Board of Directors.