Oversight of the nation’s Centers for Independent Living is severely lacking, a new audit finds, calling into question how effective the centers are at helping people with disabilities integrate into the community.
In a report from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Inspector General, officials found that the agency’s Rehabilitation Services Administration is doing far too little to assess the effectiveness of the independent living centers it oversees across the country.
The Centers for Independent Living provide information and referral services, training to help those with special needs live independently, peer counseling and advocacy services. As of 2010, there were 337 federally-funded centers across the country, all of which are run predominantly by people with disabilities themselves.
Between October 2007 and September 2010, investigators found that the Rehabilitation Services Administration conducted just 40 onsite reviews, a fraction of the 153 that are mandated under the law. What’s more, the report found that the locations selected for the reviews were not chosen randomly as required.
More problems were uncovered when the inspector general selected 12 independent living centers in 11 states to assess. While each location provided all of the services required, investigators found that poor record keeping permeated centers, with inconsistent reports on funding and how many consumers were served.
“As a result of the inadequate monitoring and oversight, partially supported performance reports and inadequately documented files, (the Rehabilitation Services Administration) did not have sufficient, accurate information to provide required oversight of the grant programs at the CILs reviewed,” the inspector general wrote. “Appropriate oversight is essential to ensuring that the program goals are met.”
Officials at the Rehabilitation Services Administration acknowledged the problems and told the inspector general that staffing and funding issues make it “extremely difficult” to review the growing number of Centers for Independent Living.
This article and information is not a fair respresentation of all CIL’s. We have backup for all of our documentation. We run a very tight ship in regards to fiscally related matters as well. Perhaps the problem is what they are asking of us to report.Very little technical assistance is provided to the CIL’s and what is provided to us we usually have to pay for. The bottom line is, to lump all of us in a category as though the program is not effective is unfair. There need to be clear-cut benchmarks, and a better tool for reporting to show the true nature of all the wonderful services that CIL’s provide. Just as other agencies do we are swamped with doing more with less. My dedicated staff work extremely hard to help people with disabilities.
The Cil in Virginia Beach, Va does an a excellent job with helping people with disabilities. If they did’nt help help me my son would be on a waiting list 100 miles long. Stephen Johnson and his staff are highly skilled in their areas. People do’nt realize they are a non profit, working on a very limited budget. He and his staff believe in independent lives for all people with disabilities.
I found our local Center for Independent Living to be totally useless and a joke. They could not even muster up the energy to come to a state meeting in our city on independent living. They sent a piece of paper instead of a person for a very important meeting. I found the only aid they could provide was to locate resources to build a ramp if you needed one. I was very disappointed and can’t figure out why they are funded, looks like nobody is paying attention. Thanks for a good article.
CIL’s appear to be massively underfunded at the federal, state and local level as they are run for and by people with disabilities. In light of massively inadequate funding, CIL’s typically do a whole lot with meager budgets. CILs have done so much for so long with so little that they are capable of accomplishing most anything with nothing at all.
ATTN: Michelle Diament, You should consider a follow-up to this article. The full audit report clearly states that the RSA is supposed to conduct on-site reviews of 15% (selected RANDOMLY) of grantees (approx. 153 during the 3 year period of this report), however, they only conducted 40. It is unrealistic to expect a staff of 5 to conduct 153 on-site reviews when this is just a marginal percentage of their total job responsibilities. So, the RSA selected the 40 CILs based on number of received complaints, fiscal alerts, and other areas of concern. Because only CILs in perceived trouble were included in this review, it is not valid to judge the performance or accountability of all CILs on this report.
I work for another community disability organization, and often partner with our local CIL. They are the most amazing, dedicated group of people you’ve ever met. The Memphis CIL has a very active disability advocacy group – whether it’s a local, state, or national issue. These are the folks you want on your side. They work long hours for very little pay. Funding continues to shrink and their client numbers continue to grow. Grant agencies want to see numbers reported, but the work that the CILs do, is more a quality of life service — difficult to report in hard numbers. CILs need MORE funding, not less. They need MORE support, not less. RSA needs to look at the way they collect data and modify it to fit the CIL services provided – if they want an accurate picture of program effectiveness.
We help people with disabilities find employment, provide medical equipment and home modification, build ramps, provide free classes in anything that will assist a person in independent living, such as computer classes and refurbished computers. The purpose of the centers in fill in the gaps where there are no other serveries.
All of the centers in Texas that I am familiar with (which would be all of them) are directed by people who put their heart and soul into doing the best they can on funds that are very limited, verse the need. We look for and share resources to find funding for our consumers outside of what we are given by RSA. RSA also encourages us to do that. We not be having RSA come on our site to monitor us, but we realize it is a possibility, and we do an enormous report at the end of the year on what we have accomplished through out the year. Some reporters and journalists aren’t fair in their reporting, but it doesn’t mean all journalists are that way. Apply it to anything, police, dentists, teachers, … occasionally you get a bad apple.
As an individual with a disability who worked at a CIL from 2009-2011, I cannot agree more with the findings of the RSA and the very real problems these findings point towards. CILs (as ours was a leading example fo-r others and one of the few that was investigated) are focused largely on fundraising, and less and less on helping individual consumers with high quality assistance. Reporting and record keeping constantly falls neglected and when audits come, there is a lot of scrambling to guess at what the numbers are and the facts are polished to make what is in reality, mediocre, seem dazzling. I would deter any donor from giving to a CIL without truly investigating and asking tough questions.
This article does not reflect on the majority of Centers for Independent Living, as it focuses on a relative few for which RSA identified for review. DisabilityScoop would better serve the disability community and our nation by focusing on why federal and state governments direct funding to forming duplicative services and programs when Centers for Independent Living are proven, consumer-driven organizations which yield positive results in the lives of people with disabilities. Comparable to many other funded initiatives, CIL’s are run very cost effectively for all that is provided. A follow-up article is in order which represents CIL’s comprehensively and correctly.
After reading this article, I am not sure who the author is “attacking”–CILs or RSA. On either front, before making judgments, I think she needs to do a bit more research. First, as she pointed out, only 40 of 153 audits were conducted in a three year period and as we know, RSA is extremely understaffed. So, my conclusion is that those CILs that were audited (or a majority of them) may have been ones that RSA has received complaints about and they were following up. Making a rash generalization about the entire CIL network based on a 12% sample that isn’t even random, is careless at least and not profession at all.
I will not say there are not “bad apples” in the CIL community. Show me a network of over 300 organizations that doesn’t have problems. But in general, my experience from many states has been that CILs do the best they can, given the battles they have just to maintain funding. The one area of concern that I would have is that too many have become so professional they have become social work organizations and do not engage in enough of the advocacy efforts that others do and is needed. Independent Living should be able to balance the service side of the organization with the civil rights advocacy side that is desperately needed, especially in these times of being the sacrificial lamb for political cuts.
I have been involved with some real good CILs and locally a REAL bad CIL. There are ones who’s only concern is self preservation, doing a little as possible to keep thier position. Our local CIL did not know where the accessible city swimming pools were located. They did not know about issues with the bus system. I have helped a number of people deal with the bus system myself since I have no funding to worry about lossing if I make someone mad. The local CIL’s board has no active primary consumers, how can you make decisions about transit issues where no one who works for you or your board does not ride the bus regularly. How can you tell people they have to have thier own fund raising for a accessible playground when you should know the city is required. When I have had to call Memphis CIL for help with Wavier issues and our local CIL has no clue. All locally is interested in a collecting names and addresses for thier Federal Report. I have had similar issues with other disability issues groups. I will not be counted for thier report unless I am served.
The article assumes a cause and effect relationship between three pillars. Oversight, ILC record keeping and ILC effectiveness. The history of Centers for Independent living as a movement would not necessarily support that assumption. When Ed Roberts and the rolling quads worked for the good life with a for people there was no funding and no central oversight. A look back would, however, show effectiveness both in the short term and long run. Some might say that the funding of the movement moved the energy more toward agency than advocacy community. One could even make the argument that as the ILCs found a service niche a void was created that was later filled by ADAPT. I am not presenting data here that validates or invalidates the effectiveness of an ILC or ILCs collectively. I am merely raising the possibility that oversight and report writing may not be the proper tools of effectiveness. In fact, government oversight and agency report writing may be indicators, or even agents, of entropy.
While it is true we can always find some ineffective organizations in any program, the important reality when it comes to the Independent Living movement is that both non-profit Centers for Independent Living and the Rehabilitation Services Administration have been required to conduct reporting and oversight tasks that are not supported by the limited funding available. Any organization with more requirements than funding to pay for it will have a tough decision to make; do you help the next person standing in line, or tell them to wait while you write a report? If you want to know about effectiveness, it seems the money saved and the lives changed through the efforts of CILs would be a good place to start. My experience is that just a fraction of CIL consumer outcomes demonstrate vastly greater financial benefit to the economy than the overall public investment in this program. Helping people get off of public supports and out of poverty, reduce the need for emergency room and doctor visits, avoid nursing home stays and law enforcement intervention saves a ton of money and results in people with disabilities living more productive and fulfilling lives. That’s a story worth telling.
Who is responsible for inspecting “Independent living” facilities that do not get Federal grants and are not monitored by the US Department of Education that have residents that require nursing care? At one facility in Columbia there are 40 residents needing care and there is never any inspections. The conditions for some are disgraceful.
If you want 60′s and 70′s style activists the ILCs are the place to be. If, however, you want any kind of service from these organizations you’re unfortunately out of luck. Being disabled does not necessarily make one competent to run a business. Unfortunately that is all too often the case. Advocacy instead of Accountability.
Have to agree with several comments here. The self preservation, lack of active consumer representation on boards and unserved areas assigned to federally funding agencies have been a real problem. Perhaps RSA should set up and force some of these stagnating agencies to restructure and clean house. Then keep a better watch. I know of many people who have contacted RSA with concerns that have gone unresolved or the pass the blame game took place. Funding aside, why pay more to fund the same old ways. It’s like putting more fuel into a leaking gas tank!