Dear consumers, families and friends,
The purpose of this letter is to urge everyone to recognize the depth of the crisis we now face and to become actively engaged in defending the basic safety net of services that people with developmental disabilities and their families depend on.
California is poised to dismantle the protections afforded in the Lanterman Developmental Disabilities Services Act and greatly reduce or eliminate community program services.
It is critical to realize that nearly all direct services and supports provided in California are delivered by local, community-based nonprofit organizations such as People Services, Inc., not by state offices or by regional center personnel.
In many cases these nonprofit organizations were founded by parents and other community members who accepted their role in creating alternatives to the state-operated institutions that characterized California”s public policy regarding the developmentally disabled as recently as 1970.
As parents organized into nonprofit organizations, they began to raise money and hire local community members to work as direct support staff for their sons and daughters. California recognized the vast improvement in the quality of life offered by community services and the enormous savings to taxpayers offered by a service system based on service delivery by local nonprofit organizations.
In 1970, California began to convert the vast majority of its publicly funded service delivery system to a model based primarily upon contracting with local nonprofit organizations.
By contracting with local nonprofit organizations such as People Services, Inc., rather than building and operating public facilities, California has saved billions of tax dollars over the last 40 years, while providing extraordinary services to its citizens with developmental disabilities.
But, because California did not establish a system for routinely assessing and adjusting its rates of reimbursement to its nonprofit partners, these rates have fallen further and further below the actual costs of providing the direct services that people need.
As a result, local non-profits such as People Services, Inc., have worked as hard as possible to raise additional funds to supplement state payments and have stretched their operations as thinly as possible to survive. This stretching and struggling has characterized the nonprofit service provider community for more than 20 years.
The proposed additional cut of $750 million dollars in California”s funding to the developmental disabilities community, on top of the previous years of cuts and freezes, will lead to the collapse of the nonprofit organizations the state relies on to deliver services.
Given the undeniable needs of people with developmental disabilities served by these organizations such as People Services, Inc., there is simply nothing left to take away.
These community-based organizations are being left to sort out how long they can continue to spend money they don”t have to meet California”s legal and ethical obligations.
If or when we fail, who will take our place? Will California step back in and create a new system of residential and day service direct care? Where would those funds come from? Is a costly and bureaucratic State system what we hope for?
To repeat ? the purpose of this letter is to forewarn everyone who cares about the current and future welfare of people with developmental disabilities.
If we permit the collapse of the nonprofit organizations that provide the actual services, we will have lost everything we have invested in for 30-plus years.
Consumers, family members, friends, policy makers, the organizations that you depend on now depend on you.
Without delay, contact your own state assembly member, your state senator and the Governor. The message right now is simple:
Please stop! Just for a moment, stop and consider how deeply you cut last year and how seriously the safety-net has already been weakened. This new cut is too deep.
The risks to people”s lives are too real to make these cuts without first understanding their consequences and searching for alternatives.
Thank you for your support and advocacy,
F. Ilene Dumont
Executive Director
People Services, Inc.
