Those of you who know the disability community in Ca, also likely know the Lanterman Act. It has provided the legal underpinning for what was once the world leading support for the disabled in Ca. Sadly, we've had some problems lately, and we now need to mobilize some support so we can continue having state of the art support for our disabled.
ARCA (Association of Regional Agencies) has released a new report, here, that describes the sorry state of support for our programs for the disabled. In short,
California spends less on its developmental services system
for each resident of the state than most other states in the nation. When taking into account the relative wealth of each state, California’s performance is even lower and continues to decline. At this point, California spends the least amount of any state on services for each individual with a developmental disability that qualifies for community-based services eligible for federal funding
One glaring example:
Now, many direct support professionals are paid the minimum wage, despite a study in 2001 suggesting that a fair rate of pay at that time for direct support professionals was $10.00-$10.99 per hour, at a time that the state’s minimum wage was $6.25.
Reflect on this a moment, we're paying them less in 2015 then was recommended in 2001
This causes other effects, from personal experience, my son's support agency is having problems getting workers to take the overnight shifts for him because there's plenty of easier work that competitive salary wise, even if the emotional rewards are not comparable. After all, working 12 hour night-shifts is not exactly enticing.
Additionally, as we ramp up minimum wages in locations like Berkeley, San Francisco, and elsewhere, it's really hurting the agencies that provide services because they have had no increases in monies to pay supports to cover these raises, so literally over 100 agencies have gone out of business the last few years.
So, what can we do, well there's a petition located on the home page at: http://www.lantermancoalition.org/
As well as #KeepThePromise here