Independent living is where disabled people can participate in day-to-day life, living where they choose and making decisions that lead to self-determination. Most non-disabled people take for granted opportunities they have regarding living arrangements, employment situations, means of transportation, social and recreational activities, and other aspects of everyday life.

For many people with disabilities, barriers in their communities take away or severely limit their choices to live independently. These barriers may be obvious, such as lack of ramped entrances for people who use wheelchairs, lack of interpreters or captioning for people with hearing impairments, or lack of accessible copies of printed materials for people with visual impairments.

Other barriers--frequently less obvious--can be even more limiting to efforts on the part of people with disabilities to live independently, and they are caused by people's misunderstandings and prejudices about disability. These barriers result in low expectations about things people with disabilities can achieve.

Millions of disabled people in the United States and beyond have established lives of independence. They fulfill many different roles in their communities, from employers and employees to marriage partners, parents, students, athletes, politicians, taxpayers, and more. In most cases, the barriers facing these people haven't been removed, but these individuals achieved independence despite them.

Independent living need not merely be defined in terms of living on one's own, being employed in a job fitting one's capabilities and interests, or having an active social life. Independent living has to do with self-determination. It is having the right and the opportunity to pursue a course of action desired by the individual, regardless of what discriminatory attitudinal or institutional barriers may exist. And, it is the freedom to fail and learn from one's failures just as non-disabled people do.

History of the Independent Living Movement

The history of the independent living movement comes from this philosophy: people with disabilities have the same rights, options, and choices as anybody else.

The history of the independent living movement in the United States can be traced back to as early as the 1850s when deaf people began establishing local organizations to advocate for their interests. These local groups merged into the National Association for the Deaf in 1880.

Protesting can be traced back to the depression years of the 1930s. The League of the Physically Handicapped held protests against the federal government for discrimination against disabled people in federal programs.

The National Federation of the Blind and the American Federation of the Physically Handicapped were organized in the early 1940s. Disabled soldiers returning from World War II established the Paralyzed Veterans of America.

The current history of the independent living movement is tied in with the black civil rights struggle and other movements of the late 1960s and 1970s. A significant part of these activities involved forming community-based groups of people with different types of disabilities who worked together to identify barriers and gaps in service delivery. Disability advocates created action plans to educate the community and influence policymakers at all levels to change regulations and introduce barrier-removing legislation.

In 1972, the first Center for Independent Living was established in Berkeley, California, by Ed Roberts and the Rolling Quads. Ed Roberts began classes at the University of California in 1962 in Berkeley. Since there was no housing for disabled students then, students with disabilities lived in the Student Health Service infirmary, a part of the Cowell Hospital.

By 1967, Cowell Hospital was home to 12 disabled students, and by 1968, it became a formal program managed by the California Department of Rehabilitation. Inspired by the political activism of the 1960s, these students began to see themselves not as patients but, in political terms, as an oppressed minority.

While living in the infirmary, a sense of community developed based on the barriers and discrimination they all faced. The group of students began to call themselves the Rolling Quads. As the Rolling Quads, they protested the arbitrary restrictions placed on them by the rehabilitation counselors. When one counselor determined that two of the disabled students were "infeasible" and would be unable to find jobs out of college, she attempted to send them to a nursing home.

Ed Roberts and others protested and demanded that the counselor be reassigned, and the students be reinstated at the college. At one point in the protests, a psychiatrist from the Department of Rehabilitation threatened to institutionalize all the Rolling Quads. After the Rolling Quads went to the local newspapers, the state relented, reassigned the counselor and reinstated the students.

At the same time, Jean Wirth of the United States Department of Health Education and Welfare had developed a program monitoring peer counseling and supports for minority college students to reduce their dropout rate. Jean approached Ed Roberts and the Rolling Quads and asked them to design a similar type of program for disabled students.

The program they developed was called the Physically Disabled Students Program (PDSP). Included were provisions for Personal Assistance Services, wheelchair repairs, emergency attendant care and help in obtaining whatever financial services were available under the various state, federal and social service rehabilitation programs.

The three principles of PDSP 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

As the program gained popularity, people with disabilities who were not students began applying for services. In May 1971, the PDSP started to meet with community residents who needed these services and established the first center for independent living with a one-year $50,000 grant from the Federal Rehabilitation Services Administration.

Central to the Center for Independent Living (CIL) philosophy was that it be a non-profit advocacy organization - not a social service agency.

Today, in the United States there are America is home to:

• 403 Centers for Independent Living (CILs)

• 330 branch offices

• 56 Statewide Independent Living Councils (SILCs)

And all centers are required to offer these core programatic services:

• Peer Support

• Information and Referral

• Individual and Systems Advocacy

• Independent Living Skills Training

• Transition

To locate a specific Center for Independent Living (CIL) or State Independent Living Center (SILC) click here . More information about independent living can be found here and at ACL.gov . And

Note: Portions of this article have been referenced from the mtstcil.org website and the NCIL website.