Press Releases: 2012
New Horizons Un-Limited - People with Disabilities Want to Live and Work in Their Own Homes and Local Communities
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For more information, contact:
New Horizons Un-Limited
P.O. Box 510034
Milwaukee, WI 53203
Phone: (414) 299-0124
Email: horizons@new-horizons.org
New Horizons Un-Limited - People with Disabilities Want to Live and Work in Their Own Homes and Local Communities!
People with disabilities that access the programs at New Horizons Un-Limited want to work!
They come to NHU to try to better their employment skills, but they will also face the fact that maybe no one will hire them because they have a disability.
Disability employment programs and employers themselves report that individuals with disabilities are a good investment for companies as they are equally, if not sometimes more capable, dependable and responsible as any other worker as Henry Ford found in the last century. Recently realizing the potential of being part of the solution of getting people to work, companies such as Walgreens have expanded initiatives to hire more individuals with disabilities. See their Walgreens Disability Inclusion Program at www.walgreeens.com/topic/sr/disability_inclusion_home.jsp. Aspiritech in Illinois is hiring only those with Autism in an effort to match the best skills and exceptional intellect exhibited by these workers with the company’s projects of software testing. See their program at www.aspiritech.org.
Those who were born with a disability or were suddenly faced with a lifelong disability want to live, work, participate, and contribute as equals in their local communities.
From the 1970’s to the 1990’s through present day, studies by local and state governments and social workers realized people do not live well in institutions and that by providing community support, people with disabilities can live and work in their own homes and communities with greater independence, self-reliance and responsibility for themselves at a fraction of the social and economic cost of institutionalization.
One thing of which we can be sure: institutionalization will not benefit anyone in our society!
Individuals with disabilities have been fighting for the last half century for the right to live independent lives in our communities. Nursing home utilization has decreased due to consumer preference for community-based settings. Today we assist people to live in their own homes and communities.
Yet, people with disabilities in our country do face a host of barriers in achieving their goals.
- Lack of affordable housing
- Lack of employment opportunities
- Lack of transportation
- Low community expectations
These barriers can limit the ability and choices about where and how people live and work.
Do we have the intellect and the science but not the will to maximize the quality of life of every person of our society?
In the words of Justin Dart, known as the Father of the American Disabilities Act:
“I adamantly protest the richest culture in the history of the world, a culture which has the obvious potential to create a golden age of science and democracy dedicated to maximizing the quality of life of every person, but which still squanders the majority of its human and physical capital on modern versions of primitive symbols of power and prestige.”
“I adamantly protest the richest culture in the history of the world which still incarcerates millions of humans with and without disabilities in barbaric institutions, backrooms and worse, windowless cells of oppressive perceptions, for the lack of the most elementary empowerment supports.”
What Can YOU do?
Tell everyone how people with disabilities can live and work in their own homes and our communities, strengthen our communities, contribute to community life, and enrich others.
We need to reach out to all sectors of society about the truth regarding people with disabilities. As members who support an organization for people with disabilities, we encourage you to talk to people, reach out to other individuals about who are people with disabilities. They are you or me, family or friend. They are 52 million people in the United States. People with disabilities are American citizens; they pay taxes and contribute to the economy of the nation. They are us and we are all more alike than we are different!
We as a society will benefit if we empower people with disabilities to live and work in their own homes and communities.
(Continue to NHU Press Release on New Horizons Un-Limited - Improving Work Skills - Employment Skills Training)
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If you have questions or ideas, information and solutions that you would like to share
with us, contact us by e-mail at: horizons@new-horizons.org
or to use our NHU E-Mail Form or NHU Community Forum,
click the links below.
New Horizons Un-Limited Inc.