What do we say?

 What Do We Say?

 

By

Carl Jarvis

 

The news came as a shock wave through  the blind community in Washington State.  Faced with orders from the Governor's Office to make a major budget reduction, the Department of Services for the Blind (DSB) included in their proposal the elimination of the state-wide adult training program. 

This would be accomplished through the closure of the apartments used to house out of town students, changing the Orientation and Training Center (OTC) into a local day program, available to only those blind people who could manage to commute to and from the Center. 

Without consulting the blind community, the organizations of the blind or the State Rehabilitation Council, DSB officials made a decision that significantly changed the long established structure of service delivery. 

From that April day in 1963, when the doors were flung open to the new Center at 3411 South Alaska Street, in Seattle, blind people across the state have had access to an intensive daily adjustment and training program.  We blind people saw this program as the center piece, the heart of Services for the Blind. 

Now, with no consultation, no public meetings, no advance notice, our heart was being cut out and offered up to the Governor's Budget. 

Perhaps the Department has forgotten its history.  It was not they who fought in the 30's and 40's for reform in Aid to the Blind.  They did not fight during the 50's to acquire a special building to house services for the blind.  Indeed, in the 60's and 70's they even resisted efforts to establish a separate agency for the blind. 

Everything we have today, everything the Department is, came about through the hard, dedicated efforts of generations of blind men and women.  The Department owes its existence to people who held a vision of a better life for those who would come long after them. 

But the Department has decided that they are the experts and that they must make decisions for us, without the need to involve us. 

What do we say to this? 

What we say is this.  We say that the members of the Washington Council of the Blind(WCB) believe that we are in a Partnership with our Department of Services for the Blind. 

We say that we expect to be treated as full partners. 

We say that partners work together to build stronger services, to solve problems and to come together to protect our Programs. 

We understand that we are going through hard economic times, and under pressure, decisions can be made in haste. 

So we must remind ourselves that we are partners.  Equal Partners.  As partners, we will work and share together.  As Partners we will come through these difficult days and as Partners we will succeed. 

 

 

 

 

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