One small step for David, one giant leap for folks with disabilities
The giant snowflakes serve as celebratory confetti for a beaming David Cicarelli as he carries his stash of Hi-C juice boxes into his new home in Wheeling.
“I can now have my own drinks in my own refrigerator,” the 38-year-old man says. “I've been wanting to do this for about 15 years.”
All he had to do was win a lengthy civil rights lawsuit in federal court.
Born with a developmental disability that left him with a low IQ, David was living at the Riverside Foundation in Lincolnshire when he and his co-plaintiffs won a landmark court case that allows people with developmental disabilities to use their government support payments to move into smaller community settings if they are able. David will share this large, two-story house with round-the-clock caretakers and four other men with similar disabilities. A sixth housemate might move in soon.
“The lawsuit we had took so long,” David says of the case filed in 2005 that grew into a class-action suit.
“If it wasn't important we wouldn't have fought for six years and nine months,” notes his mother, Juli, as she walks around her son's new digs. “It's just wonderful.”
David says his portable fire pit will go next to the patio in the fenced-in backyard. The basement party room is the spot for the whimsical wooden maid figurine, which will sport a candy dish on her outstretched tray. That freshly painted bright blue wall in his bedroom — the first time as an adult that he's had a room of his own — was chosen by David to match a wall at the Wheeling High School football field he can see from his house.
“It makes me feel happy and joyful,” David says.
An army of attorneys spent literally tens of thousands of hours to hammer out an agreement supported by the institutions, the residents and the state. It protects current residents of large facilities while granting new freedoms and rights for residents who can move to less-restrictive environments within their communities.
“We're thrilled that David is finally getting to move into the community,” says Barry C. Taylor, vice president of the civil rights division for Equip with Equality, a not-for-profit advocacy agency that helped spearhead the case, which was led by a pro-bono attorney from SNR Denton. “David displayed a lot of courage in standing up as a named plaintiff to secure community services not only for himself but for thousands of other people with developmental disabilities in Illinois.”
The house on this quiet residential street is owned and operated by Clearbrook, the suburban agency that provides an array of services to people with developmental disabilities. It was purchased through a gift from the foundation of a DuPage County family that asked to remain anonymous.
David walks from room to room, soaking it all in.
“This is their dream come true,” says Carl M. La Mell, president of Clearbrook, who stopped at the house during the busy moving day. “They've been waiting a long time, and we're as excited as they are. It's exciting for everyone involved.”
Clearbrook staffers started months ago buying furniture and getting the house ready for its new family.
“It's not my house. It's their house,” says Rachael Pelc, a qualified support professional from Clearbrook who was hard at work Thursday with coordinator Kristin Brown putting the house in order.
“We want these guys to fit right in,” says Sam Tenuto, director of Clearbrook community living services, adding that the residents are screened and trained to make sure the program fits them. “We really do our part to be good neighbors.”
David, who already has a Wheeling High School jersey, says he hopes to be able to walk to the high school to watch football games. Tenuto says residents in all the community programs are given as much freedom and responsibility as they can handle safely. Some walk to jobs. For now, David will take a bus to his job at the Clearbrook workshop in Palatine.
A Clearbrook staff member will be in the house whenever any of the residents are home. While the men plan to do many of their own chores and prepare late-night snacks and other meals, the men will never be on their own without a supervisor, Tenuto says.
Tired of eating dinner at 4:45 p.m. in the institution with 100 residents where he lived since 1997, David says he's looking forward to simple pleasures such as displaying his leg-shaped light like the one from the movie “A Christmas Story,” which is one of his favorites, or going down to the refrigerator to grab a Diet Coke.
“It's cheaper, too,” David says, explaining that he would spend $1.55 for a soft drink from a vending machine where he used to live.
His new home is cheaper for the state as well, since the law says community housing with eight residents or fewer can't cost more than housing in institutions, and most cost less. La Mell says it costs about $45,000 a year to keep someone in community housing, while larger facilities often cost more.
While David talks about the fun of spending his first night in his new home, he smiles when he learns he won't be responsible for everything that comes with suburban homeownership. Maintenance workers will handle all the snow shoveling chores.