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This week I had the opportunity to visit one of The Arc’s chapters in SoCal and meet so many of the wonderful staff and people with intellectual and developmental disabilities that come through their location every day. During my time there I was heartened and uplifted by miracle stories of people with disabilities doing amazing things. Like a woman who didn’t speak for 40 years of her life, but when the staff, after realizing that the woman is a fierce advocate for her friends, asked her to participate in her friends’ education programs, the woman began to say a few words to help her friends out. And a gentleman whose “behaviors” of pulling tin foil out of trash was getting him in trouble, but The Arc’s staff recognized his passion as a vocation instead of a behavior, and now he is making and selling beautiful tin-foil sculptures. And another gentleman whose housing was in jeopardy because of threats and insults he would make at people when he got upset, but after a team-meeting with staff and an implemented strategy to demonstrate collectively how the insults can hurt feelings, the gentleman completely changed his behavior after only two weeks.
The common threads behind these beautiful miracles are: 1) A determined individual who wants to grow and become a better person; and 2) Exceptionally talented Direct Support Professionals (DSPs). Which is why what happened next broke my heart.
After hearing these stories I was shown payroll for the organization. The staff that I had just met, these miracle workers, some who had been working there for 5, 10, 14, 18, 22 years, were making $11.11, $12.21, $12.40, $13.69, $14.80 per hour. Instead of a skill that should be highly valued, the state of California has decided to make wages below a “living wage” for these DSPs. And it’s not unique to just this organization; it is happening throughout the state. It is an outrage and it is wrong.
California’s Department of Developmental Services is currently examining the wages they pay for these community based services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and they are scheduled to produce a recommendation for new wages in March of 2019. The only possible conclusion from an examination of these wages is that they are FAR too low, and that we must place greater value on their heroic work. All of us will have the responsibility to ensure, through advocacy and organizing, that these higher wages are passed into law. Without doing so, I’m afraid we’ll see far fewer miracles.
Jordan Lindsey, Executive Director, The Arc of California