Keep working to improve services for disabled
Little City is an organization that provides care and services to the developmentally disabled such as my 27-year-old daughter. Your article “Secretary Quintero, Director Piephoff take tour of Little City” states there is a “…growing issue of families who have no choice but to leave the state to find vital services for their loved ones.”
It is a growing and long-standing issue. I know this because I started my search for a better place to live in 1998 when my one-year-old daughter was denied needed services.
I discovered 25 years ago that nearly every state performs better than Illinois. According to a May 2023 opinion piece in the Chicago Sun-Times authored by three of our state representatives and one senator (LaPointe, Collins, Syed and Villanueva), titled: “Our state ranks 49th in the country for funding and support of the estimated 300,000 Illinoisans with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families, who deserve an opportunity to live safe, full and meaningful lives.”
We never did leave. Ilinois is our home. Our family, friends and jobs are here. A move to a different state would have been sad and difficult. As a state, we should be ashamed to force people out of their homes. Illinois has no problem appropriating $46.5 billion for roads and bridges yet balks at proper funding for disability services.
We are fortunate because Little City is now our daughter’s home. She lives in a managed setting and has wonderful direct support professionals, daily activities and friends.
But we are the fortunate few. We will become too old to care for our daughter. Knowing that she has a safe place to live and thrive lets us face the inevitable day when we are no longer here. We hope that everyone can find that same peace.
I have hope. Given the efforts of those in state government who understand, one day Illinois will improve and climb the ranks to join other more enlightened states. What we do as a society for those least able says the most about our level of civility and compassion.
Austin Walsh
Schaumburg