As we continue to celebrate 50 years of of the Independent Living Movement in America in 2022, we sit down with Shelly Simmons, Executive Director (E.D.) of the Statewide Independent Living Council of Georgia, to talk about some of the challenges they've faced in advocacy and how they've managed to continue to serve persons with disabilities in a state with limited funding and abundant rural community populations.
Unable to walk away from advocacy
Shelly Simmons was surprised by what she found when she moved from California to Georgia in 2005. Now the E.D. of the Statewide Independent Living Council of Georgia, she says that she didn’t originally plan on staying in advocacy work after she moved east, but life had other ideas.
“I was working at a Center for Independent Living (CIL) [in California] and actually wanted to kind of get away from doing advocacy work. But when I came to Georgia, and realized like, ‘Oh, my goodness, you don't have this? You don't have that? Wait a minute, what's going on? And just felt it was necessary for me to become a part, and hopefully be a part, of the change.”
Those issues that Simmons noticed, lack of support to find work, income caps for the independent care waiver program, and the divide between rural and urban centers, are still areas of concern for the nine CILs across the state. As she says, “We have a saying here in Georgia, ‘Now there’s Atlanta, and then there's the rest of Georgia.’ You can drive, 45 minutes outside the city, and really be in rural areas. And so that makes a big difference and we're trying to adjust to some of those needs now.”
Providing service in rural areas
One of the ways local independent living centers have adjusted is by offering satellite offices to areas that were previously offered little to no service, an area Simmons calls “middle Georgia,” where farming is the main focus. The employment concerns faced in the community, Simmons believes, are partially due to the sheer amount of turnover in the state’s vocational rehabilitation leadership. That turnover included a resignation by then-director Sean Casey after he was taken to court for racial discrimination, a case state funds were used to settle. Barriers to service for the state’s providers are also often rooted in political concerns over the amount of funding available, particularly when it comes to employment income caps for those accessing services, according to Simmons.
“We have been working on that for years. In fact, my predecessor was even trying to work on that before she retired and it's just so hard gaining traction. Again, trying to find a legislator that was willing to listen, hear what we have to say. But being in a red state, of course, the bottom line is money. And we're just trying to figure out how we can work our way around that.”
Some of that struggle is rooted in cuts at the state level. While CILs are federally mandated, additional funding at the state level was cut by Governor Brian Kemp after he asked state departments to look at significant budget cuts due to the pandemic. It’s funding shortages that Simmons says have forced them to adapt.
“We really had to go back in and redistribute some of our supplemental funding to help some of those smaller centers stay afloat, but we've been able to do that. They have to get creative in seeking other streams of income, or funding to come in. [It’s] challenging, but I don't think that they're going anywhere. In some instances, the support or resources that they can provide can be delayed and limited if we're not able to get some of this funding back.”
Those cuts impacted waiver programs for developmentally disabled adults transitioning out of the school system, among other offerings. As a result, part of the state-wide organization’s work, Simmons says, is in working alongside the Georgia Council on Developmental Disability and the Georgia Advocacy office as well as the executive directors of each center.
“I cannot be more proud of our executive directors. Because again, they have been very resourceful. We work very well with each other, and I don't know if a lot of states can say that.”
More on the SILC of Georgia
The Statewide Independent Living Council of Georgia works to promote independent living by sponsoring public hearings, quarterly public meetings, and other educational outreach efforts and provides information to public officials, state agencies, and local organizations through research and policy development.
The Statewide Independent Living Council of Georgia, Inc. (or, “The SILC”) is a private nonprofit corporation governed by people with all types of disabilities from all across the state. The role of the SILC is to identify societal barriers to independent living and to collaborate with Centers for Independent Living, Rehabilitation Services, and other related entities to remove those barriers and to increase the supports and services needed to create independent living opportunities.
To learn more about the Statewide Independent Living Council of Georgia, visit SILCGA.org.
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