The editorial board of the Baltimore Sun says Maryland lawmakers should make people with developmental disabilities a top priority this year. An excerpt:

Maryland, despite its wealth, has lagged for years in services for its most vulnerable residents and those who give over their lives to care for them. The system is fast approaching a breaking point, but the state, caregivers and advocates should use that crisis as an opportunity to make sure Maryland lives up to the promise that all its citizens can live a life of freedom and dignity.

From the Trenton [NJ] Times:

Robert Hage, the father of twin daughters who are both developmentally delayed and deaf, called on New Jersey State Treasurer David Rousseau this week to avoid slashing services for people with developmental disabilities.

Hage’s daughters are among 160,000 New Jersey residents who would be affected if the state cuts funding for developmental disability services. Gov. Corzine has asked department heads to plan another $400 million in spending cuts.

“We depend and rely on these services so dramatically,” Hage said. “We desperately need to make sure there’s no cuts.”

Tom Baffuto, the executive director of the Arc of New Jersey, said the state threatened to cut services for people with developmental disabilities last year but backed down after advocates protested loudly.

Writing in the Kansas City Star, Lisa Cannady says Kansans like her son Pierce must endure years on waiting lists before they can get the government services they’re entitled to receive. An excerpt:

There is something, collectively, in us that has allowed us to ignore the most vulnerable among us. From the waiting list that thousands of Kansans with disabilities have to negotiate, to comments earlier this year by President Obama about the Special Olympics, it is clear that disabled people remained largely disenfranchised. This is the last taboo, the group that it is still acceptable to marginalize.

The ugly truth is that when the needs and rights of people with disabilities are not upheld, when indignities – the big ones and the little ones – are allowed to go unchecked, it tells this vulnerable population that they don’t deserve better. It tells them substandard care and consideration are all that special needs people are worthy of.

As the mom of a special needs child, I am not prepared to accept that as my child’s due. I am not raising my son to sit at the back of the bus.

Lisa Cannady is a social services counselor at Lakemary Center in Paola.

From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

While finding employment opportunities for people with disabilities is a nationwide problem, New Jersey and Pennsylvania social support programs are trying to create jobs by competing for piecework contracts. That’s getting more difficult as the recession goes on, and waiting lists for jobs continue to grow.

It’s estimated that more than 70 percent of working-aged people with disabilities are not working, said Bill Ditto, New Jersey’s director of disability services, and about 90 percent of them live in poverty.

Among the barriers to employment faced by people with disabilities: Social misperceptions that they are not capable of working, and fears that a paycheck could jeopardize their federal benefits.

From the Baltimore Sun:

Maryland disability advocates have launched a campaign to reverse $29 million in state budget cuts that would affect more than 20,000 residents with developmental disabilities. They say the vulnerable community is already underfunded.

“In good times, we don’t get our share. In bad times, we shouldn’t have to give back,” said Carol Beatty, executive director of the ARC of Howard County.

Supporters have organized a series of nine public meetings around the state, and are meeting with Gov. Martin O’Malley, legislators, and other top officials.

“I know how painful these cuts are,” O’Malley said. “We’re not doing these things because we think no one will be affected adversely. At this point, anything we cut is core mission.”

Senate minority leader Allan H. Kittleman criticized the governor for using state funds to buy large tracts of land for preservation when state residents with disabilities are losing services.

UPDATE:

See also: Developmental disabilities community decries budget cuts to state services — Annapolis Capital

Sacramento Bee, Los Angeles Times, Oakland Tribune, and elsewhere:

A federal judge on Monday halted a California budget plan to cut or reduce caregiver services for 130,000 seniors and people with disabilities.

U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken sided with plaintiffs in a class action suit who had argued that the state had not developed a fair method for determining whose services were to be cut.  She issued a temporary injunction against the plan, which was intended to cut $82.1 million from in-home support services, and ordered the state to send out notices reassuring people that their services will not be cut on Nov. 1.

Under the judge’s order, the cuts are halted pending future hearings on the lawsuit filed by groups representing senior citizens, people with disabilities, and members of caregivers’ union. The decision is seen as a victory for disability advocates and unions that represent in-home workers.

Earlier posts here.

From the Irish Times:

Irish disability advocates yesterday attacked a government plan to cut home services for people with intellectual disabilities, saying it will actually cost more than leaving services intact.

Inclusion Ireland, the national association for people with an intellectual disability, said maintaining home and educational supports would allow the government to avoid spending the €80,000 a year (about $120,000) per person that it costs to provide long-term residential care.

“We are facing difficult times. People with disabilities, their parents and families, through no fault of their own, are going to have to pay for it,” [Inclusion Ireland chief executive, Deirdre Carroll] added.

… In the case of autism, which costs the State an average of nearly €5 million ($7.5 million) in the lifetime of a person with the illness, it is a case of “early and cheap or late and expensive”, Irish Autism Action board member Brian Murnane said.