Our current newsletter features TEDx Talks “Reimagining Housing for People with Developmental Disabilities.” The presenter is David Buuck, who was not known to me prior to the presentation.
My first takeaway was incredibly disturbing. At Stuart Flaum Consulting and at Special Needs Family Planning, we drive home the value and opportunity in self-determination, social capital and financial planning. We temper fear with realistic, reachable goals for successful outcomes for individuals who happen to have intellectual and developmental disabilities
I particularly like David’s ideas on harnessing anger, controlling environment and changing rules if you do not like the game.
Are you angry that it is virtually impossible to apply a state housing stipend to an intentional community? Or for any community that a person desires and chooses? Is CMS and the federal government preventing housing solutions so desperately needed?
David suggests that most parents fear that they will predecease their children with IDD. Does that not fly in the face of people living self-determined, self-directed and meaningful lives?
That makes me angry. Let’s change the federal guidelines as to what is willful choice by an individual and their supporters.