People with Developmental Disabilities: Aren't 'They' But You and Me

Jill Keppeler's poignant column from The Tonawanda News in upstate New York. As a young reporter, she recalls covering resientance to a group home. Now, the mother of a child with Down syndrome, she stands by her column from 10 years ago.

’Because it could happen to you. It could happen to me ... and all of those we love.’
I wrote those words a long 10 years ago, a young reporter in my first full-time journalism job, in a column that ran in another Western New York newspaper.
A couple in the city in which I worked at that time was taking great offense to the notion that a home for people with developmental disabilities was being built in their neighborhood, so much so that they sought to stop it. They weren’t reticent in their tactics: Harsh words and fear and claims of danger and problems to come were being used to great effect to get others on their side.
People from the group, parents of those with disabilities and those with disabilities themselves had banded together to combat this, saddened by the misinformation and rather angered that someone who just didn’t understand ’ nor wanted to ’ would resort to it. Their children deserved the chance to live in a residential, rather than an institutional, setting, they said. Wouldn’t you want the same for your kids?