In California’s tri-county region (Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties), thousands of residents benefit from services provided by their local Independent Living Resource Center (ILRC). These services facilitate their inclusion in society.

The Independent Living Resource Center of Santa Barbara County is just one of 29 resource centers across the state that assist and empower all people with disabilities to achieve self-sufficiency and enjoy full participation in their community. ILRC provides an information and referral service, advocacy, peer support, independent living skills training, deinstitutionalization and housing assistance, to name just a few of their services.

“It used to be that housing assistance meant having a list of accessible properties. In California housing that is accessible to people who use wheelchairs or have mobility impairments is increasingly difficult to come by, so what we’re doing now is more ‘housing advocacy:’ participating with local groups to make sure that a portion of their living units are accessible or adaptable for people with disabilities and that disabled people have an opportunity to get those units when they become available,” explains Josephine Black, the center’s executive director. ILRC also works with developers, contractors and planning departments to ensure people with disabilities are considered when new housing units are built or designed.

Other services available in the tri-county region are consumer-driven, such as the Sign Language Interpreter Registry, which provides people who are Deaf or have a hearing impairment with American Sign Language interpreters, and the assistive technology program. Assistive technology includes devices and products that facilitate everyday tasks for people with disabilities, such as hands-free telephones, wheelchairs, Braille printers and one-handed can openers.

“We had a guy who could only move his thumb. We worked with him to figure out what he could do and modified some equipment [on his computer],” says Black. “He wrote us the best little letter about how he shopped online.” Black knows that this man’s ability to make his own choices and purchases gave him a tremendous of sense of independence.

For many people with disabilities, a significant part of independent living includes working to earn an income. Through the employment assistance program, ILRC not only helps prepare job seekers for the interview process and teaches them to be their own advocates in the workplace, but also educates potential employers about people with disabilities.

“We try to get people psychologically and emotionally ready to work and support them in what they want to do,” Black says. ILRC has helped place individuals in jobs ranging from painting miniatures to working in construction and maintenance.

Black and her staff at ILRC serve about 2,500 individuals each year. Of these, approximately 15 percent, or 375 individuals, are Spanish-speaking. The Spanish-speaking population of Santa Barbara County continues to grow, so the organization has expanded and modified its services to better address the needs of this budding segment of the community. Their information and referral service has been restructured to be bilingual and bicultural, much of their literature is now available in Spanish and a number of staff members are fluently bilingual to assist information seekers in their native language and to serve as interpreters when the services they request are not available in Spanish.

Because she’s worked at ILRC for the past 22 years, Black has witnessed the evolution of the organization and has helped adapt programs and services to the changing needs of the community.

“When I first came to the center, a lot of the issues were primarily social, getting people together. Some had never seen a person with a disability before. Now it’s a lot more economically oriented. People come in looking for a way to get something done and help in reaching their personal and professional goals,” Black states. However, the mission of the Independent Living Resource Center remains the same.

“The goal is to provide people with disabilities a choice and empowerment. We want to provide people with information and help them utilize it in the way that they choose. We help them do what they want to do.”

And isn’t that what personal independence is all about?

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