The Chicago Sun-Times article “ ‘Disability cliff’ awaits many young adults after high school” sheds light on a critical issue impacting individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. After aging out of public school at 22, many are left without a clear path forward, putting their hard-earned skills and potential at risk.
At Special Children’s Charities, we’ve worked for over 55 years to address this gap. As a driving force behind inclusion and empowerment for children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities throughout Chicago, we have funded programs across every neighborhood, ensuring individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities have access to meaningful opportunities. Through longstanding partnerships with the Chicago Park District and Chicago Public Schools, we have worked to expand inclusive programming.
In 2022, we partnered with City Colleges of Chicago to launch the After 22 Program, a first-of-its-kind initiative in Chicago designed specifically for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. After 22 offers tailored courses, job coaching, internships and job placement support, providing students with opportunities to build skills, gain confidence and secure meaningful employment.
The individuals highlighted in your story, Carlos Mejia and Adrien Dancy, demonstrate the immense value people with disabilities bring to the workforce. Programs like After 22 help unlock their potential and give them the opportunities they need to succeed.
However, programs like these can’t meet the demand alone. In addition to state-funded programming, philanthropic organizations, foundations, and businesses must step forward to expand opportunities for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. We urge businesses to actively seek out and hire individuals with disabilities and ensure they have the necessary support to thrive. We call on other philanthropic organizations and foundations to make long-term commitments to programs like After 22, ensuring sustainable opportunities for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Programs like After 22 are a step in the right direction, but we must work toward a future where all young adults have options after high school.
Together, we can make Chicago a national leader in inclusion — one where every person, regardless of ability, has the opportunity to contribute and thrive.
Ray Baker, president, Special Children’s Charities
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Caregivers need a financial boost too
The Dignity In Pay Act is a broad call to reimagine what is possible in a rapidly changing workforce. It prevents employers from paying workers with intellectual and developmental disabilities less than minimum wage and celebrates the transformative power of economic participation in one’s community.
The outdated argument was the experience of work was less valuable to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their work was inherently sub-minimum. The truth is people with intellectual and developmental disabilities experience a full range of emotions including the self-worth that comes from supporting their communities and forming relationships with colleagues.
Andy, a Clearbrook client who works in inventory at Haskris, an equipment manufacturer in Elmhurst, says, “I love my job. They said I’m doing very good, and they’re proud of me. I’m proud of myself, too!”
Testimonials like this are routinely overheard at our facilities. With regard to justifying sub-minimum wages, our entire economy is heading toward a future in which millions of jobs will be better performed by AI-based agents as opposed to human workers. Will all of our work then be considered sub-minimum?
This transformation to our economy begs for human-centered work to be highly valued, and investment in care-based service can shape the future culture of our communities. The cost of ignoring well-known labor shortages in nursing, elder care and care for disabled people is escalating. Consider the direct service professionals in the intellectual and developmental disabilities community who literally enable other people to bathe, use the bathroom, manage medications, and prepare and eat food. Illinois’ wage rate for this life-sustaining work remains comparatively low following years of underfunding that has resulted in a severe labor shortage.
When we live in a community that pays people more money to stock shelves at big box retailers than to provide care for the disabled, we have a problem. When specially trained health care professionals can’t make ends meet, we have a problem. When empathy, patience and compassion are qualities we don’t invest in, we have a problem.
But with problems come opportunities. Illinois took a long-overdue step in recognizing the dignity of disabled workers. Now we must do the same for care workers. Such an investment will strengthen our communities, culturally and economically.
Jessica Smart, CEO, Clearbrook
Trump opens door to corruption by firing IGs
President Donald Trump illegally fired at least 17 inspectors general last month. The law states the president must give Congress substantive rationale, including detailed and case-specific reasons for the dismissal 30 days before the firings. Trump gave no reasons and did not inform Congress. The job of an inspector general is to prevent corruption, waste, fraud and abuse. The president wants nobody to challenge him. Expect plenty of corruption, waste, fraud and abuse to follow.
John Regan, Lemont
Tech bros nail down wealth, power
Extreme concentration of wealth and power accompanied by massive corruption is nothing new in this country. In the 1840s and 1850s, we experienced the cotton plantation wealthy; in the 1890s, we had the robber barons in banking, steel and railroads; in the 1920s, we suffered the stock speculators; and now we see the tech bros nailing down their wealth and power.
The wealthy few always enjoy that wealth at the expense of the rest of us. I can only hope that our country will once again return to a more just normal.
Mary F. Warren, Wheaton