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Colleen L.
Fraser,
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THE NEW MILLENNIUM Getting to a Better Place by Colleen Fraser There is no doubt that the Olmstead Decision is a huge victory for the opponents of institutional care. I am just a bit more cynical about it than some. I don’t think we have the infrastructure to support its implementation in New Jersey. I was born in 1950, in the mid-point of the last century. At that time, there really wasn’t much for people with disabilities. Generally speaking, they were just warehoused in institutions. I came of age in 1970. All of the victories that we are celebrating were already ideas that were out there at that time. Here we are thirty years later and those ideas have become laws, regulations and court decisions. There has been progress, and I guess we are right to celebrate it, but this is a slow process. Policy follows progress, not the other way around. In a sense, policies are often made, not based on new ideas and philosophies, but in defense. New Jersey will undoubtedly make policies to try to keep themselves out of court on Olmstead. That is not the same thing as believing in the underlying values, in believing that people with disabilities should be integrated in the community. I am not accusing any particular person or agency of insincerity. This is just how government and bureaucracy work. I don’t anticipate quick changes because of Olmstead—or as a result of the passage of the Work Incentives Act. I think that, for the immediate future, you will see changes, but they will be in the lives of individuals who have the wherewithal and resources to take advantage of these things. The Work Incentives Act is not a civil rights law. It protects services and not rights. You still have to descend to the level of poverty to take advantage of it. From my point of view, if you have rights, services will be available, even if you have to pay for them. If you have rights, you may be able to work and earn the money to buy services. People with disabilities in general, not necessarily people with developmental disabilities, have had to resort to poverty in order to get services. I am talking about people who become disabled as adults, people with life experience, with work experience, who could, with help, get and retain employment, but cannot make enough money to buy health care and other services they need. The Work Incentives Act still won’t help you until you reach the bottom, economically. It will not prevent you from reaching the bottom in the first place. You don’t get help because you have a disability. You can only get help if you are poor and have a disability. In the area of civil rights, there have been enormous advances in the past thirty years. But we are still trying to enforce the civil rights laws. And I would have to remind you that my Governor is currently suing to say that the Americans with Disabilities Act should not be applied to State government. That gives me a somewhat different perspective on progress. The progress we may think we have made is still being challenged on every level. I don’t think we have got it yet. Hold off scheduling the celebrations. Instead of spending the money on something that will benefit all of the citizens of the state, we are supporting this lawsuit to avoid meeting ADA requirements. There is an attitudinal barrier there that we have yet to overcome—or to build a ramp over, you might say. I can see all the way from my handicapped class in third grade to here. We have come a long way, but, when you consider the rapidity of change in other areas of society, we have been chugging along in mud up to our waists. Ethan Ellis once told me that the reason that I was so uncomfortable with Bob Nicholas, the former director of DDD, was that he was an incrementalist. I have since realized that change happens that way—gradually. I don’t have to like it. A social marketing consultant from Canada once asked me if I was willing to wait for ten years for the changes I want. I am not willing to wait for ten minutes. I will work for ten years, though. We have to work harder. Every person of color is related to other people of color. Women are in families and communities with other women. People with disabilities can be very isolated and the general community may ignore their interests. We have to work harder to organize our community. But we do have the only minority group that you can join. In fact, you will join, if you live long enough. I am also not convinced by the folks who push the new technology. They keep saying that we will have all of these space-age solutions to technology—bionic limbs, chips that will cure disabilities, all that stuff. People with disabilities are poor. There will always be the questions about whether they really need or deserve it. There will always be the problem of how you pay for it. To sum up, I don’t think that we will be much further along in 2050 than we were in 1950. I get impatient with having to settle for such small victories. People hold onto things because they are better than what they had before. Institutions are an improvement over being confined to an attic. If we can see a better place, we can go there. We ought to go there. |
