It’s no secret that people of color face systemic inequities in virtually all aspects of society. Access to disability services and community living support is, unfortunately, no different. Barriers that disabled people of color face when pursuing effective community living are upheld at an institutional level, with intrinsically discriminatory policies and practices around housing, policing, healthcare, education, and even access to food.
It’s important for people with disabilities to live in our communities, and important to understand the difficulties they face when striving to. “Crisis in our Communities: Racial Disparities in Community Living” from the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, explains how policy choices, now and in the past, keep disabled people of color from accessing community living.
This toolkit begins by talking about what racial disparities are. It explains how policies cause racial disparities in emergency management, employment, community supports, the criminal legal system, housing, and health care. It also talks about how we can start to fix inequality in each of these areas. The toolkit is available in Easy Read and plain language. You can find both of these materials here.
We hope you’ll use this toolkit in your advocacy, and share it widely. It’s important to keep talking about community living, the barriers that disabled people of color face, and what we can do to change them!
