Mission

The Center for Accessible Living is an innovative leader in empowering all people to achieve their goal of independent living while involving the entire community.

Independent Living Philosophy

“Independent Living does not mean that we want to do everything by ourselves, do not need anybody or like to live in isolation. Independent Living means that we demand the same choices and control in our every-day lives that our non-disabled brothers and sisters, neighbors and friends take for granted. We want to grow up in our families, go to the neighborhood school, use the same bus as our neighbors; work in jobs that are in line with our education and interests, and raise families of our own. We are profoundly ordinary people sharing the same need to feel included, recognized and loved.”
- Dr. Adolf Ratzka

Most Americans take for granted opportunities they have regarding living arrangements, employment situations, means of transportation, social and recreational activities, and other aspects of everyday life.

Essentially, independent living is living just like everyone else–having opportunities to make decisions that affect one’s life. It is being able to pursue activities of one’s own choosing–limited only in the same ways that one’s neighbors who do not have disabilities are limited.

Independent living has to do with self-determination (the right and the opportunity to choose and pursue a course of action). It is having the freedom to fail–and to learn from one’s failures, just as people without disabilities do.

There are many different types of organizations which serve people with disabilities. These organizations provide valuable services and are important links in the network of services that help people with disabilities maintain independent lifestyles.

What makes independent living centers very different from these other organizations is that in centers, people with disabilities are substantially involved in making policy decisions and delivering services.

The basic idea behind independent living is that the ones who know best what services people with disabilities need in order to live independently are people with disabilities themselves. This theory locates the real problems or ‘deficiencies’ in society, not the individual with a disability. The answers are to be found in changing society, not people with disabilities.

(Taken from An Orientation To Independent Living Centers, published by ILRU Research and Training Center on Independent Living at TIRR, Houston, Texas.)

Consumer Control

Consumers (individuals with disabilities) control all aspects of the Center including decision making, service delivery, management, administration and establishment of policy and direction.

The Board of Directors, which establishes policy and direction for the Center, is composed of members from the local community, the majority of which are consumers.

A majority of the management level staff are consumers. All of the peer counselors, a majority of the direct service staff and the majority of the overall staff members are consumers.

There is a wide diversity of types of disabilities of Board and staff members including sensory, physical and cognitive categories.

The Center maintains working relationships with numerous consumer advocacy groups and organizations on the local, state and national levels. This provides an opportunity to receive additional input and feedback from consumers on the grassroots level.

To the greatest extent possible, the Center attempts to recruit and utilize volunteers, support staff and instructors who are individuals with disabilities.

Center for Accessible Living History

In 1979 Consensus, Inc. did a demographic and needs assessment study of physically disabled people in Jefferson County — one of the first of its kind in the country. The results, released in 1980, showed that 80,000 people in Jefferson County had disabilities — twice as many as had been thought.

In that study, people with disabilities identified housing issues — the availability of housing information, info about barrier removal/access and legal rights as the number one unmet need.

The Center for Accessible Living grew out of these findings and began operations January 1981 as a housing resource program, with a $48,600 grant from the City of Louisville’s Community Development Cabinet.

Soon we realized the problem of housing is interrelated with other problems people with disabilities face when trying to secure housing: employment (to pay for housing), transportation (to get to the job), attendant services (assistance to get your clothes on to go to the job), peer counseling (when your personal assistant is late two days in a row, making you almost miss your ride to work), just to name a few.

To address these needs we sought funds to expand our center to a comprehensive independent living center. In October 1981, Prime Movers got a $200,000 grant from the RSA, US Department of Education, and the Center became a full-fledged independent living center, providing housing information, information and referral, peer counseling, independent living skills training, personal assistive services, and advocacy.

The Center started as a dream of a few people with disabilities asking the question: What do we really need? What would really be the best solution to our problems? The Center for Accessible Living was the result of those answers.

Independent Living Movement

The history of the independent living movement is tied in with the African-American civil rights struggle and with other movements of the late 1960s and 1970s.

A major part of these activities involved the formation of community-based groups of people with different types of disabilities who worked together to identify barriers and gaps in service delivery. In 1972, the first Center for Independent Living was established in Berkeley, California by Ed Roberts.

The principles of IL were:

• Experts on disabilities are the people with disabilities.
• The needs of people with disabilities can best be met with a comprehensive program, rather than fragmented programs at different agencies and offices.
• People with disabilities should be integrated into the community.

Central to the philosophy of the Center for Independent Living (CIL) was that it be an advocacy organization – not a social service agency.

Our Story – Is the Community’s Success

Georgia 

I lived in a nursing home for twelve years and some of the situations I saw were unbelievable. I woke up one morning and I found a naked man standing at the end of my bed. It was a resident who they could not control. On numerous occasions, I and other residents would buzz for staff to come to the room and you could wait for hours because staff would turn off the buzzers at the desk. Imagine yourself living in a house that smelled like urine 24 hours a day. It is not a pleasant experience that anyone would like to live with. One night I went to a Christmas party but didn’t get back until after 11 PM. I had to sit in my wheelchair for over 3 hours until they finally decided to put me in bed because I had not gotten back by 11:00, which was the curfew. Because of this, the doctor rescinded my pass privileges for a month. This is not the way someone in their twenties should be forced to live.

Because my parents had both died and I had no other family, I then became involved with the Center for Accessible Living, and I discovered that I could live on my own with some help. That is where the Attendant Care Program has helped me so much. I was able to get out of the nursing home and start living on my own, which I have done for the last nineteen years. This program has been invaluable to me and to so many others who live on their own with the help of the Center for Accessible Living. You don’t know what it is like to live in a nursing home. You have hardly any freedom to even try to live a normal life. So many of you take it for granted that when you lie down at night, to go to sleep in your own home, that you will be safe for the night.

Through the Center for Accessible Living I can now decide on what I want to eat or what time I want to go to bed, instead of having someone else make those decisions for me. If I want to go out to a concert or to a ballgame, I can do so without having to listen to the nurse’s aides talk about me getting back too late to put me to bed at 8 or 9 PM. Does this sound like the life you want to live — to be in by 8 or 9 instead of listening to a concert or watching a basketball game?

When I left the nursing home is when my life really began. It is impossible for me to describe the way I really felt. The first time I entered a grocery store to purchase what I really wanted to eat instead of being told what I had to eat, or the first time I answered my own phone, there are just no words to describe it. The only way I can describe my feelings about that is, I was like a bird out of a cage and I want that feeling for others. Thank you for listening to my story.

Jackie

My name is Jackie. I was raised by my grandparents. When I had surgery on my hip in my early thirties, I left my grandparent’s home because my grandmother wasn’t able to tend to me anymore. I spent almost a year at Kosair Children’s Hospital after my surgery and then was put into a nursing home.

My experiences in the nursing home were not good. For a woman in her early thirties, I had very little freedom. The staff told me what to do and when to do it; they wanted to put me to bed at seven in the evening. I had no independence as a young adult. I had to sign a paper every time I went somewhere, and if I went out at night I had to back by eleven pm. One night I went to Jim Porter’s Bar and stayed out after midnight. When I returned the staff made me wait until after they did their rounds to put me to bed. They were not very happy with me, but I didn’t care because I am an adult.

While in the nursing home, the facility wasn’t going to pay for an electric wheelchair, which I need to move around independently. With no other choice, a friend gave me a used power chair and shortly afterward it caught on fire with me in it. I was scared and unable to get out myself, and yelled for someone to get me out of it.

I used to go to the Center for Accessible Living to get away from the nursing home. I would stay all day sometimes. The Center had regular meetings with me to plan for me to live outside the nursing home on my own. When the nursing home found out that I was trying to leave, I received negative attention. They did not want to help me to the bathroom when I wanted, or give me my medicine when I need it.

Once I was out on my own, the Center for Accessible Living helped me find an apartment. Medicaid provided a power chair and I used a local agency for attendant care. For that agency, I had to be home at five in the evening so they could feed me and put me to bed. Although I was now living in the community, I still had restrictions on my independence. Eventually, the Center got money for an attendant care program, which I got onto shortly after. In fact, I helped the center and other places in Kentucky get the Personal Care Attendant Program. I protested and advocated for the program here in Louisville. I protested for my rights and for the rights of so many others, though I did not go to jail.

The Personal Care Attendant Program allows me to be the boss of my attendant, so that I can live more independently. I can hire and fire who I want and most importantly, I can set my own schedule. For the first time in my life I was eating and going to bed when I chose to, not when someone else wanted me to. I was able to eat food that I wanted to eat, not just whatever was put in front of me. I now have the choice of doing what I want without being told what to do. I can go to a baseball game if I want to.

My first apartment wasn’t as accessible as it should have been, but it was the only thing I could get if I wanted to move out at that time. I was leaving in a hurry and it was the only apartment that was available to me without being on a waiting list. I lived there for four years until I had to move due to some maintenance problems with the apartment that weren’t being fixed. At that time I asked the Center for Accessible Living’s housing program to help me find an accessible place to live, without breaking my pocketbook. They gave me a list and I went through it, filling out applications and calling apartment managers. I was on an accessible housing waiting list for three years. Finally I was at the top of a list and got my new home.

I used the same wheelchair for twelve years, needing a new one in 1990. I still had to wait five years to get the replacement paid for. The next wheelchair that I needed, I researched and found myself, not wanting to wait for the home health agency and their services. I met the owners of the wheelchair company here and advocated for them to get the ball rolling for me. This wheelchair took only three months to get.

The Center for Accessible Living has been at three different locations since I became a consumer. The first one was on 8th and Jefferson. They moved to 3rd and Kentucky in 1988, and then to 3rd and Broadway a few years later. There have been many changes in the staff of the Center over the years, but the program has stayed the same and has helped many more people along with me.

Today I am an executive board member at the Center. Before that I was on the advisory board for the Council on Mental Retardation. I try and stay active and give back some of what I have learned myself in the community.