May 17, 2022

Help End the Disability Workforce Crisis

It’s time to TAKE ACTION!

Please contact the Governor and your elected officials at TheFutureIncludesUs.org and urge them to end the disability workforce crisis by accelerating funding for regional center services and supports NOW!

The disability system is facing a serious workforce shortage. Last year, this Legislature passed a historic budget that included a “phased-in” five-year plan to close the $1.8 billion funding gap to the disability system that would ultimately stabilize the workforce for direct support professional and regional center service coordinators. Unfortunately, the bulk of the investments are not scheduled to occur until 2024 and 2025.

Rapidly changing circumstances like the pandemic and inflation now threaten the viability of that five-year plan. This funding could be “too little, too late” if we don’t make those investments in the 2022-23 May Revise budget, which is being negotiated now.

Let your elected officials know you support proposals to address the staffing crisis by accelerating the IDD five-year funding plan by one year, so those investments start NOW. It can’t wait.

Let’s build a future that will provide Californians with disabilities and the professionals who provide their supports and services a chance to live full and equitable lives.

ACT NOW at www.TheFutureIncludesUs.org. Thank you!

September 21, 2021

Urge Governor Newsom to Sign AB 118 — Community Response Initiative to Strengthen

the Emergency Systems Act

Assembly Bill 118 (Kamlager) Community Response Initiative to Strengthen Emergency Systems Act has made it to Governor Newsom’s desk, and we urge the Governor to sign this important bill into law. AB 118 is a critical first step toward improving the relationship between law enforcement and Californians with developmental disabilities and their families.

This bill would establish a pilot grant program to expand community-based organizations in an emergency response role for vulnerable populations. If signed by the Governor, the Department of Social Services would run the program which is designed to de-escalate crises, reduce reactive violence, and send critical non-law enforcement emergency services, provided by trained mental health professionals, to people in crisis.

The bill would require the department to award grants to qualified grantees, which include city, county, and tribal departments of social services, disability services, health services, public health, or behavioral health, based on grant eligibility criteria developed in partnership with a stakeholder workgroup.

All too often people with disabilities have encounters with law enforcement (or other first responders) when they are in crisis, and the encounters end in excessive or deadly use of force. AB 118 will protect the health and safety of the disability community.

ECF Joins The Arc and UCP to urge Governor Newsom to sign this bill.

We ask you to join us in advocating for alternative approaches to crisis response for vulnerable populations. Please send an email to the Governor urging him to sign this important legislation.

Thank you for being an important advocate for Californians with developmental disabilities and their families.