Fw: Arc and Real Jobs Its Everyones Business

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Arc and Real Jobs Its Everyones BusinessFYI

Ellen

Ellen Garber Bronfeld

egskb@...

Arc and Real Jobs Its Everyones Business

First day of the Alliance for Full Participation Employment

Summit and Illinois Chapters receive housing grants. Is this email not

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Dear Ellen,

Today at the Employment Summit the first Keynote is " Why

Employment Matters, " featured speakers include Senator Tom Harkin, Tim Shriver,

Bill Kiernan and many more. This should be a good day. Tomorrow, Kathleen

Sebeluis, Secretary of the Dept of Health & Human Services joins us! I also have

meetings with Senator Durbins staff on Health Care Reform and Medicaid.

Congrats to Corner Stone and SouthStar Services for

landing housing grants. See story below.

Tony

Millions Headed To States For Disability Housing

By Shaun Heasley

November 17, 2011Text Size A A

More Americans with disabilities will soon have access

to housing assistance from the federal government, Obama administration

officials say.

Under an initiative announced Wednesday, nearly $150

million is headed to non-profit agencies across the country to provide rental

assistance and develop new housing options for people with disabilities.

The funding, provided under the U.S. Department of

Housing and Urban Development’s Section 811 program, is tagged to support 92

housing projects in 35 states.

Most agencies receiving the grants — which range from

about a half-million dollars to over $4 million — plan to build new

residences. Some will be small apartment buildings or condo units while others

will be group homes designed for three to four individuals with mental illness,

physical or developmental disabilities, administration officials said.

Residents who qualify for Section 811 assistance must

earn less than 50 percent of the median income for their area. However, most

recipients earn less than 30 percent, or about $13,500 for a single person.

Under the assistance program, residents pay no more than

30 percent of their income in rent, with the federal government picking up the

rest of the tab.

More in Living »

Copyright © 2011 Disability Scoop, LLC. All Rights

Reserved.

Tony auski

Executive Director

The Arc of Illinois

20901 S. LaGrange Rd. Suite 209

fort, IL 60423

815-464-1832 (OFFICE)

708-828-0188 (CELL)

Tony@...

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Copyright © 2011 The Arc of Illinois, All rights

reserved.

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The Arc of Illinois.

Our mailing address is:

The Arc of Illinois

20901 S.LaGrange Rd.

Suite 209

fort, IL 60423

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[Guest guest]

Arc and Real Jobs Its Everyones BusinessFYI

Ellen

Ellen Garber Bronfeld

egskb@...

Arc and Real Jobs Its Everyones Business

Isn't it time for Illinois to become an Employment First

state?

Read Tony's comments on the Alliance for Full Participation

Employment Summit. Is this email not displaying correctly?

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Dear Ellen,

I was delighted to join over 1,200 advocates from across

the nation who attended the Alliance for Full Participation’s Employment

Summit in Washington D.C. last month. I wanted to share with you my impressions

of the important aspects of the Summit and its implications for future

services/supports. The Summit itself was the combined effort of 15 national

disability organizations including The Arc.

The theme of the Summit was: “Real Jobs: It’s

Everyone’s Business!†Attendees represented about 1/3 self-advocates, 1/3

family members and 1/3 community providers. The voice from the self-advocates

was loud and clear: “Have high expectations! We want real jobs!â€

The goal of the Summit is to double the rate of

competitive employment for people with intellectual and other developmental

disabilities (which is now around 10%) by the year 2015.

States were also encouraged to follow the lead of many

other states, including Washington, Massachusetts and Kansas, to become

Employment First States. Right now there are over 25 states working on some type

of Employment First initiatives. In Illinois, an Employment First Summit is

being planned for policy makers and statewide associations in January, 2012.

Washington State has had the longest experience with

Employment First. Their policy is: “Supports to pursue and maintain gainful

employment in integrated settings in the community shall be the primary service

option for working-age adults.â€

Employment First is about raising expectations and

improving practices, applying the same set of responsibilities and expectations

to people with disabilities that are applied to all working-age adults.

What we are experiencing now is a national movement away

from traditional day programs and a shift to re-structure current services to

integrated employment for everyone. This movement is being strongly supported by

the Dept. of Health & Human Services, Dept. of Labor, Office of Special

Education & Rehabilitatitive Services and the Dept. of Justice.

I was fascinated to learn in a presentation from Eve

Hill, Dept. of Justice, that DOJ is expanding its efforts to enforce the

Olmstead decision into states who have an over reliance on segregated day

services. This is beyond only investigating community living options. The recent

agreement between DOJ and the State of Georgia is a good example of their

efforts to expand employment initiatives away from traditional day programs:

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/October/10-crt-1165.html

The Georgia agreement highlights the clarification of

employment services recently issues by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid

Services as part of state waivers. Here is a link to CMS Informational Bulletin

on Waiver Instructions Regarding Employment Services. Expect to see similar

agreements in Virginia and other states DOJ is working in. Employment and

segregated day programs are on their radar.

We heard success story after success story about people

moving from institutions and day services to competitive employment. We heard

success story after success story about communities moving to re-tool their

traditional day programs and moving into competitive employment for everyone.

The facts are quite clear: we have the knowledge and the technology to employ

people with disabilities in integrated employment. This is something we can do,

but policies and funding must change here in Illinois in order to make this

transition.

Mank and Wehman, two national experts on

employment, encouraged states with these thoughts:

1.. People Want Change

2.. Have High Expectations

3.. Presume Employability of Everyone

4.. Be Positive – Focus on Success

5.. Innovate with Technology

6.. The Labor Market is Shrinking

7.. We Know How to Do This

8.. Bring People Together in Illinois to Advocate for

Employment First

Illinois is on the brink of major systems change. Our

disability system is about to be re-balanced in favor of community-based

supports & services. These are exciting times. We are going to see opportunities

to move to best practice models in community living and employment practices. It

is going to require a lot of hard work, re-tooling of the current system and

giving our staff the important training in this time of transition. We have

talked about this forever. I have not seen an opportunity of this nature in my

entire career. We know how to do this and the time is now.

Tony

Here is a link to the AFP Summit, handouts, videos and

other products of the Summit. There is a wealth of information here:

http://www.allianceforfullparticipation.org/

Some of the keynote speakers included and they were all

great:

Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of the Department of Health

and Human Services

Egan, self-advocates at the local, national and

international levels.

Tim Shriver, Chairman and CEO of Special Olympics

Thornton, passionate self-advocate on the

importance of full participation and integrated employment. is the

former resident of a state institution.

Sesno, former CNN White House Corresondent,

moderated a very engaging Town Hall Meeting on what is needed to make integrated

employment a reality for all.

.

Tony auski

Executive Director

The Arc of Illinois

20901 S. LaGrange Rd. Suite 209

fort, IL 60423

815-464-1832 (OFFICE)

708-828-0188 (CELL)

Tony@...

follow on Twitter | friend on Facebook | forward to a

friend

Copyright © 2011 The Arc of Illinois, All rights

reserved.

You are receiving this email because you are a member of

The Arc of Illinois.

Our mailing address is:

The Arc of Illinois

20901 S.LaGrange Rd.

Suite 209

fort, IL 60423

Add us to your address book

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preferences | view email in browser