November 2002

Editor's Message

By Kristen Pratt Machado

The state of California is in a budget crisis. Long gone is the $13 billion surplus enjoyed 4 years ago during the technology boom; we are now in the hole a whopping $26.3 billion. With Democrats and Republicans 2 months late in ratifying a budget and neither side pleased with the end results, Californians with disabilities were the unfortunate casualties of this filibuster.

According to a Los Angeles Times article, independent living agencies, which help people with disabilities receive such services as home health care, affordable housing, and employment counseling, are nonprofit, private organizations that contract independently with the state Department of Developmental Services.¹ Because the budget was not ratified on time, their contracts were not renewed, thus the agencies ceased receiving funds for the past 2 months. California has 21 such agencies, serving 170,000 people statewide.¹

Lillibeth Navarro, the director of Communities Actively Living Independent and Free (CALIF), an independent living agency that was almost evicted from its offices in downtown Los Angeles because rent had not been paid for 2 months, told the Los Angeles Times (before the budget was signed), “This is an emergency. We’ve tried to be responsible. We’ve had 3 months of reserve funds, but we’ve gone through them, and now I don’t know what we’re going to do.”¹

Without independent living agencies like CALIF, many people with disabilities would be forced into institutions, an option that most abhor. I wonder if our state’s politicians realized how greatly this budget crisis affected people with disabilities. Maybe they should try living on the supplemental security income check for 1 month, and, then, they may get a clearer picture of how important these community-based services truly are.

From a home health care aide visiting every morning to help a man with cerebral palsy get out of bed and into his clothes to providing job counseling for a newly injured paraplegic, these disability services make the difference between quality of life and none at all for people with severe disabilities. I can only hope that in the 2004 budget negotiations, in between the arguments over cigarette taxes and Hollywood tax breaks, our representatives will remember those whose voices may not be backed by big lobbying dollars, but that need to be heard nonetheless.

1. Richardson L, Letran V. State budget impasse hits home for agencies that serve the disabled. Los Angeles Times. August 31, 2002. Available at: www.lattimes.com/news/local/la-me-disabled31aug31.story. Accessed September 2, 2002.

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