I read this article about the new community housing options offered in Illinois, as a response to the younger disability community, and there's a certain irony in it.

For, as much of America now rejects the thought of pre-planned life and the assumptions that brought about suburbia, this vision for people with disabilities is so pre-fabricated and separated from everyone but "people who are experiencing the same things."

Although some of the amenities seem thoughtful and inventive, I wonder how possible it is to avoid an institutional vibe. Although many of us find the disability experience to be full of trade-offs that nobody told us about while we were sitting in the independent-living center, and we may occasionally feel that the ideal of prosperous, self-directed independence promoted at ILC's is just a pretty mirage dangling out of our reach, as the realities can be quite different. Even now, my own life feels like a compromise between what I always hoped for and what I can get. Sometimes I miss living in a place with a recreation budget, but I never got to make my own decisions there, and was pretty much always treated as a dangerous, unstable, rabble-rouser.

In such an instance, I could understand the appeal of a life designed to make things not so hard. But there are some things even the most amenity-rich community cannot provide. What if you want more from life than hanging out in some facility's computer lab? In some ways, people act as if disabled people are in perpetual day camp, if we are not scrambling for necessities.

. It seems regressive to stick people in some apartment and and tell them "Your neighbor is disabled, too. You should have a lot to talk about."

It reminds me of meeting my parents' friends' daughters as a kid. Those relationships generally never lasted, right?
If that's really the sort of thing someone wants, I can't go as far as to object. But I do wonder if they aren't selling themselves short.

--Erika Jahneke