ACTION NEEDED FW: Illinois Neglects Citizens with Special Needs

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Dear NADS Member,,

If you live in Illinois and have a child with Down syndrome, or you care

about children and adults with Down syndrome, you should be concerned about

what's going on in Illinois. When my son was born in the 1970's, Illinois

was a front-runner in the area of disabilities. We had a mandate for

education before there was a federal mandate, but you will learn by reading

the article below that appeared in today's Chicago Tribune, that it is much

different today. For many years now we have been concerned that Illinois was

near the bottom of the list for community based services, but now we're at

the very bottom - DEAD LAST!!! This is an absolute disgrace and I urge you

to contact your Illinois legislators to let them know that this is just not

good enough. PLEASE ACT TODAY by following the easy steps below.

Contact your State Representative and Senator. You can find their e-mail

address by going to:

http://www.illinois.gov Click on the pull down menu in the Quick

Reference section for Services & Information, and click on ³Find

Districts/Officials² - then click " Go " . Then click on " Address " and input

your 9 digit zip code. A list will come up, click on the name of your state

Representative, then click on their e-mail address and you're in business.

Insert a personal comment and forward this article to your State

Representative and Senator. Tell him/her that something needs to be done to

get us out of this mess. Forward this e-mail to 10 people on your e-mail

list and ask them to participate and to send it on to 10 more.

Please let us not sit by and let Illinois be in place 51 out of 51 states

(including District of Columbia) for services for people with Special Needs.

Thank you.

Sheila Hebein:

Illinois neglects special-needs citizens

March 24, 2008

Chicago Tribune

The great state of Illinois is dead last‹51st actually, when the District of

Columbia is included‹in the soon-to-be-released " 2008 State of the States in

Developmental Disabilities " ranking published annually by the American

Association for Individuals with Developmental Disabilities.

For years Illinois has floundered in the lower 40s, our state-appropriated

cost of living adjustments for community-based service providers minuscule

or non-existent. There are several reasons behind this neglect, one of the

latest being Gov. Rod Blagojevich's grand plan to fund health care for all

children.

It's a wonderful aspiration, if feasible, but one that has further eroded

the state's fiscal ability to support essential community services for the

developmentally disabled.

Who's at risk here? If you are, or will ever become, the parent of a child

with developmental disabilities such as mental retardation, autism or Down

syndrome, you may want to consider moving to another state. That's because

your child has the potential to live a full, enriched life‹like any other

child‹though he or she will require specific services to maximize this

inherent promise. These services might include clinical evaluations,

connections to community work options, physical therapy, community-based job

training and, perhaps most important, a home with supportive services

located in a regular neighborhood as opposed to a state institution.

It is estimated that Illinois would need to spend an additional $250 million

in state funds just to reach " average " in terms of spending on these kinds

of services. Instead we've become a national disgrace in the way we

prioritize citizens with special needs. Despite our relative prosperity

(Illinois is the 10th richest state in per capita income), despite Chicago's

renown as a world-class city, despite the good intentions of our hardworking

and socially conscious citizens, no state treats its citizens with special

needs more callously than ours.

Let this be a wake-up call, this dead-last ranking on the new AAIDD list.

Until now we had the absurd comfort of thinking, " Yes, it's bad, but at

least we're not Mississippi. " Now, we are the punch line. Unless Blagojevich

and the General Assembly do the right thing by our developmentally disabled,

folks in Mississippi (our poorest state in per capita income) can say, " Yes,

it's bad, but at least we're not Illinois. "

MacRae

President/CEO

CARC

Chicago

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