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Clip #2

“Yeah but” number one.  I put in one of my favorite phrases, because I happen to 
run an organization that has a sheltered workshop. We almost got it closed, and 
then we did a merger and some other things happened, and it kind of grew back.  

We are one of those organizations that our three-year conversion plan has now 
become the ten year conversion plan, and it goes on and on.  But we talk about 
having, with great love, the eternal PTA, people who are attached to the 
facility as a program, which is kind of confusing.
  
I don't know if any of you've ever heard of that, that's certainly something we 
have. I'm kidding. I know you've all heard of that.  People and their families 
love the sheltered workshops.  These aren't things that I'm saying.  I have 
these statements in quotes, but it's what we hear a lot of.  They love it.  We 
hear that the workshop generates income to support the rest of the organization.  

There's actually a great deal of research and data out there that really pretty 
much disproves this.  I'm not going to insult any of my good friends out there, 
my good colleagues who are making money hand over fist in sheltered workshops, 
but most of them are struggling on a day to day basis.  Granted they generate 
income, but when you finish on the bottom line at the end of the year, very few, 
if any sheltered workshops are actually generating a profit.  

Then one of the most common barriers or “Yeah buts” to conversion is [that] it’s 
safer in the community.  I'm not going to talk about statistics on anyone else's 
part, but at our organization in Pennsylvania, we keep data on [what are] called 
unusual instances, and so we have to keep very detailed data.  We have about 70% 
of the folks that we support are in the community and about 30% are still in 
facilities.  

When we compare those statistics directly, it's very obvious that at a minimum 
the community and the facility are equal, and on the whole, the community 
statistically is safer.  That's a myth that we've been able to disprove and 
there probably should be a study on it nationally.

“Yeah but” number two.  But my people, and this is my favorite actually, my 
people are really, really, really disabled.  It's sort of a contest.  You know, 
the top ten disabled people, and your person is always number one, if you don't 
want to convert, if you don't want to help people get real lives in the 
community with real jobs.  

One of the easiest things to do is to own the person by making the decision for 
them and saying, "I think they're too disabled.  I don't think they can work."  
That's a major, major mistake to make, if you're really committed to moving 
forward with conversion, or moving forward with providing services that people 
want, and more importantly helping people get in control of their lives through 
employment.  Employment doesn't work for people with severe disabilities.  I 
just recently heard a conversation about an old friend of mine, who was the guy 
who showed me twenty videos of people that can't work. You know what? They were 
working.  

It’s one of the most frustrating things that those of us who are involved with 
helping people get real lives through employment and controlling their lives 
[hear].   We have all of this data, that hundreds of thousands of people who are 
in supported employment and even more who are almost in supported employment.  
They're out. They're working. They're succeeding.  But still we get hit with, 
"They can't work, and their disabilities are too severe."  

You say it works. But, that’s more of the "show me" kind of thing. It's an easy 
out, please don't use it.  Then, we hit the real world, 911, all of those kinds 
[of things]. The economy falters, the stock market tumbles, and state revenues 
take a nose dive.  This added fuel to the fire on the “yeah buts”.  It added 
fuel to the fire that it couldn't be done.  It added fuel to the fire that 
funding is the issue and the major barrier. It really could be [that] the sky is 
falling.  We all could be Chicken Little, we really could.  We're going to move 
on, and we'll make it even worse for you. When you're cured, you'll come out of 
it, and you'll have all the excuses out of your system. 

Medicaid spending accelerates.  Faltering economy causes the number of Medicaid 
recipients to rise.  Health care costs, inflation accelerates, Medicaid 
expansions, catch up with the states.  The result is the perfect storm.  State 
budgets are in their worst shape in fifty plus years.  I said it, it's out 
there, the world is over.  

Ok, so it can't get any worse.  There's no money to do this.  There's no way we 
can get it done.  Then [there’s] the federal government. It wasn't just the 
states. It wasn't just your own organization. You didn't get a raise last year. 
What happened to COLAS?  Anyway, it's just terrible out there.  Federal budgets 
squeeze on non-defense, domestic spending.  Medicaid reform is in play.  
Everything is happening all at once. 

[What’s] the prognosis? There's limited federal aid to help states address their 
budget problems.  The most important question, and I think a lot of us are 
asking this, as far as federal dollars and state dollars and dollars connected 
to our hearts as tax payers, has the social contract been broken?  I think 
that's a fair question in this funding situation. If we want to move forward and 
do the right thing, we can't let those things get in the way.  The impact on the 
world is that states are freezing waiver enrollment.  What used to be a no-
waiting list is now becoming a waiting list again.  Rates have been cut, 
eligibility standards are being changed daily in states, and institutional 
closures are happening without recycling the savings.  In our state, the average 
cost for having a person in an institutional setting is around $120,000 to 
$140,000 a year.  When that person comes out of the institution and comes in to 
the community for all of their supports, not just employment, only about $60,000 
to $80,000 can or does follow that person out of the institution.  I don't 
understand that math.  

[There’s] more impact on the world.  Medicaid beneficiaries with developmental 
disabilities are caught in state eligibility cuts, and trimming optional 
services, such as employment.  Refinancing instead of leveraging, that's what 
the states are doing.  There’s stagnating as the growth curve flattens.  Ok, the 
end of the world is over, but here's one of my favorite quotes in all the world.  
"Argue for your limitations and sure enough they're yours."  Our mission, our 
job, is to get past the “yeah buts”, and fund employment, simple as that.  
Here's our organizations approach.  The organization's name again is, VIA.  If 
you don't know where you're going, you might end up some place else.  My good 
friend Yogi Bear said that, he's not my good friend, but I like to think that he 
is.  
What we thought of after we heard all this stuff, (my staff, my parents, 
families, and everybody got sick of me talking about all of the things that are 
in the way), [is that] they liked it when I said "Now we know."  "Now we know 
what we're up against, and here's what we have to do."   The transition into 
that was another wonderful Yogi Bear quote, "Slump, I ain't in no slump. I just 
ain't hitting."