"Increasingly, these choices are leaving Californians with developmental disabilities without adequate services and supports to meet their needs and some without any service options at all."
A new report published by ARCA, the Association of Regional Center Agencies, details how systemic and systematic underfunding of our Developmental Services system is leaving our state's developmentally disabled without options for community-based living.
Summary from the Report:
"California has a long-standing philosophical commitment to providing quality services and supports to individuals with developmental disabilities in community-based settings but fails to provide sufficient resources to make this vision a reality. The service system now supports nearly 280,000 individuals with over 99% living outside of state-run institutional settings. Nationally, there are models available that demonstrate how best to provide individualized services in each person’s community. California’s community service providers have the drive and skills to offer similar innovative services here. What the system lacks is the resources to make that vision a reality for the majority of people it serves. The state’s lowest-in-the-nation funding for each individual with a developmental disability cannot support the vision of individuals, their families, the Lanterman Act, or the federal government.
"It is with this challenge in mind that ARCA and its twenty-one member regional centers urge the Administration and the Legislature to adopt the Lanterman Coalition’s three-pronged common sense approach to rebuilding California’s community-based service system for individuals with developmental disabilities, which entails:
1. Providing community service providers and regional centers with a one-time 10% increase in funding to help stop the further decline of the system;
2. Work to reform funding for service rates and regional center operations to ensure that funding levels are adequate and sustainable; and
3.The provision of annual 5% funding increases to the system until the funding reform strategies are implemented. The path to stabilization of the service system is a clear one. California must take these steps in order to make its promise to individuals with developmental disabilities a reality."
Read the full report:
http://arcanet.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/on-the-brink-of-collapse.pdf
Summary from the Report:
"California has a long-standing philosophical commitment to providing quality services and supports to individuals with developmental disabilities in community-based settings but fails to provide sufficient resources to make this vision a reality. The service system now supports nearly 280,000 individuals with over 99% living outside of state-run institutional settings. Nationally, there are models available that demonstrate how best to provide individualized services in each person’s community. California’s community service providers have the drive and skills to offer similar innovative services here. What the system lacks is the resources to make that vision a reality for the majority of people it serves. The state’s lowest-in-the-nation funding for each individual with a developmental disability cannot support the vision of individuals, their families, the Lanterman Act, or the federal government.
"It is with this challenge in mind that ARCA and its twenty-one member regional centers urge the Administration and the Legislature to adopt the Lanterman Coalition’s three-pronged common sense approach to rebuilding California’s community-based service system for individuals with developmental disabilities, which entails:
1. Providing community service providers and regional centers with a one-time 10% increase in funding to help stop the further decline of the system;
2. Work to reform funding for service rates and regional center operations to ensure that funding levels are adequate and sustainable; and
3.The provision of annual 5% funding increases to the system until the funding reform strategies are implemented. The path to stabilization of the service system is a clear one. California must take these steps in order to make its promise to individuals with developmental disabilities a reality."
Read the full report:
http://arcanet.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/on-the-brink-of-collapse.pdf
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