The Keys to the Community:
Opportunity, Equality and Productivity for Texans with Disabilities

Goal: Our quality of life in Texas is enriched when all Texans—regardless of their ability—have the opportunity to be integrated into and included in our schools, our neighborhoods, and our state community.

Problem: For many Texans with disabilities, the doors to our communities are locked. They are locked by inadequate teacher training, a biased Special Education due process system, and uneven enforcement of federal laws in our schools. They are locked by inadequate public funding—in programs ranging from community based services to rental assistance. They are locked by state laws that limit families’ ability to act as caregivers for relatives needing long-term care. In myriad ways, in schools, neighborhoods and communities across our state, the doors are closed to Texans with disabilities.

Recommendation: We—as citizens and managers of our government—hold the keys and now is the time to unlock the doors to equality, opportunity and productivity for all Texans. The Disability Policy Consortium (DPC) urges the Texas Legislature to consider and act on a variety of important measures that represent the keys to the community for Texans with disabilities.

Guided by these principles and representing our state’s many diverse disability communities, we join in a cross-disability campaign to advance the rights and interests of Texans with disabilities. We support:

• No Waiting Lists: Fund Medicaid waiver programs to eliminate waiting lists and accommodate anticipated population growth to support people with disabilities in their communities—not in institutions.
• Community Services: Further develop and expand community services and supports needed by people with disabilities, develop a plan to transition individuals from residential institutions to community programs, and reallocate resources to those community programs.
• Livable Wages and Benefits: Appropriate sufficient funds to improve salaries and benefits for qualified personal attendants to meet the growing need for community-based services. Assure that the primary focus of state employment and rehabilitation agencies is assisting Texans with disabilities in achieving self-determined employment in integrated community settings.
• Accessible, Affordable and Integrated Housing: Create more “real” affordable, accessible and integrated housing to meet the needs of low-income Texans with disabilities.
• Quality Educational Services: Ensure that children with disabilities have the educational services and supports they need to be successful, including access to qualified teachers, individualized transition planning, and protection of their civil and due process rights within the education system.

The Texas Disability Policy Consortium (DPC) is a group of advocacy organizations working for fair and equitable public policy for Texans with disabilities. The Consortium strives to achieve the development and full implementation of public policy that promotes and supports the rights, inclusion, integration, and independence of Texans with disabilities. The Consortium is unique in that it provides an ongoing forum for discussion of disability issues in Texas; it is a vehicle for advocacy organizations to unite their voices on important issues.