Community Living

People with disabilities don’t want to live in separate places built for us. We want to live with everyone else! Community living means living in the same places as people without disabilities. A community can be a neighborhood, town, or city. It can be any place where disabled and non-disabled people both live. Community living also means getting to make our own choices about our lives. If we are living in the community, we can choose who we hang out with, how we live, and where we work. The places we work will give us competitive integrated employment where we work alongside people without disabilities for fair wages – or, to put it another way, real work for real pay.

Read more about community living, institutions, and key laws you should know here.

Read more about real work for real pay, key laws, and our work on employment here.

Resources

• The Home and Community Based Settings Rule (HCBS Settings Rule): What It Is, Why It Matters, And How to Advocate for It Plain Language
• The Institutional Bias: What It Is, Why It Is Bad, and the Laws, Programs, and Policies Which Would Change It Plain Language
• Institutions: The Old, The New, and What We Should Do Easy Read Plain Language
• This Rule Rules!: The HCBS Settings Rule and You Easy Read Plain Language
• Community Living Summit Resources Easy Read Plain Language
• Accessing Home and Community-Based Services: A Guide for Self Advocates
• “The Best Outcome We’ve Had”: Key Themes From A Self-Advocate Summit On Community Living
• ASAN’s Invitational Summit on Supported Decision Making and the Transition into the Community: Summary, Conclusions, Recommendations
• Keeping the Promise: Self Advocates Defining the Meaning of Community Living