Today, on day 3 of the conference in Galway, we began to dig into the details of the right to community living for individuals with disabilities under the CRPD. I was very intrigued to hear from the speakers from around the world on this topic, as we covered it in our class during the spring semester. The right to community living is a hot topic in the field of disability, because it is still being worked on in many societies.

I was very interested to listen to Dr. Noelin Fox’s introduction to the right to community living under the CRPD, as she explained both the positives and the negatives of the concept in a very straightforward and understandable way. In class, we learning about the many different types of living arrangements for people with disabilities. On one hand, there are institutions where people are entirely segregated from community life, do not have the opportunity to make their own choices, are constantly supervises, and live with a large number of other people with disabilities. On the other hand, there is independent living where people with disabilities have the ability to exercise autonomy, are included within the community, and control their own life. There are other arrangements as well, falling somewhere between institutions and independent living and providing varying levels of support. Dr. Fox described these living arrangements as a continuum, which I think is a great way to look at it. Where a particular living arrangement falls on the continuum is based on the levels of choice, inclusion, and personalized support.

As the movement away from institutionalization and toward independent living continues, the amount of individuals with disabilities living in certain arrangements is slowly moving down the continuum. That means that, for the time being, many individuals are living in group homes. An important concern that Dr. Fox mentioned, which I found related very much to our discussions previously in class, is that care must be taken to not allow group homes to become mini-institutions and to actually promote the key points of independent living. One thing we discussed previously is that there are still people in institutions and as they continue (hopefully) to move out of them, I find that it is a very valid concern that it must be ensured that they are moving away from the concepts of institutionalization as well.