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Our Vision
In 1976 a small group of people with disabilities and their advocates created the Ann Arbor Center for Independent Living because the community was filled with environmental and attitudinal barriers that kept them from living full and productive lives. Our founders wanted an organization controlled “by people with disabilities, for people with disabilities,” that would help our society shed its low expectations of people in the disability community and that would work diligently to help them achieve the full participation and access to opportunities that able-bodied people take for granted. They wanted the opportunity to experience personal achievement through the full utilization of their abilities, without using the “crutch of pity” or the “balloon of heroism.”
Our founders knew from their personal experience that “the problem” was not within themselves or their peers as human beings, but with the many physical barriers and negative attitudes long held by society that perpetuated marginalization and discrimination people with disabilities faced every day.
Our founders knew instinctively that living a successful life with a disability is an art cultivated through individual effort, information, and the support of others with similar experiences. The concept of people with disabilities helping other people with disabilities expresses an aspect of human nature and disability culture that compels us to help others learn, grow, and avoid the mistakes we ourselves have made along the way.
Through peer advocacy and support children, youth and adults with disabilities share information and adaptive techniques, offer understanding, provide emotional support, and demonstrate living life to its fullest through embracing both the gifts and challenges posed by disability. Through peer advocacy and support, individuals with disabilities speak out, strive to be their best, live a life of their own choosing, and take reasonable, calculated risks to achieve their goals.
The Ann Arbor Center for Independent Living has dedicated itself for more than 32 years to the success of children, youth and adults who live with blindness and visual impairments, deafness and hearing impairments, cerebral palsy, arthritis, post polio, muscular dystrophy, multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injury, amputation, mental illness, substance abuse, autism, epilepsy, learning disabilities, traumatic brain injury, stroke and other disability characteristics, as they live their lives at home, at school, at work and in their communities.
Ann Arbor Center for Independent Living
3941 Research Park Drive
Ann Arbor, MI 48108
(734) 971-0277 phone
(734) 971-0826 fax