In recent years, I have been realizing that there has been increasingly more community inclusion among the intellectual and developmental disability community where challenged individuals that are in community (or group) homes are experiencing things in the community just as I and my family are. For years, this practice has been frowned upon or there were events that were just for them, but times are changing, and the world must understand that.

It can be hard to believe that at one time in my life there was a thought of me being placed in such a setting as a community or group home. These are homes that are just like any other home in the community that people live in, but they have a few individuals with developmental disabilities, and they are staffed oftentimes around the clock.

For many years, individuals in such homes were frowned upon attending events in the community that would make them frowned upon and not feel welcome. However, in recent years there has been more of a shift towards community inclusion for individuals living in these homes to ensure that they have the same opportunities to participate in things that all individuals can participate in.

They are citizens of the communities they reside in and despite what some in the community may not believe, they want to do the same things that those that are neurotypical or have natural or family supports can and want to do. Likewise, they should be treated with the same respect just as any other stranger on the street would. Individuals regardless of whatever personal challenges they are experiencing should feel welcome accepted and included in the communities that they reside instead of feeling sheltered or secluded away from the rest of the world just because their disability does not fit the mold of what society does not expect of the community in which they reside.

Regardless of challenges or supports, disabled individuals, at their choosing or desire should be able to live as they choose with the supports that they need and are entitled to in the community that they choose to reside. As much as society can be blatant and cruel at times believing that this is not the case because at times there is a disbelief that individuals that present themselves in the way that society does not feel that they should is not the way that is appropriate by what they feel. All that these individuals want is to feel as if they belong to a community that has many times shunned themselves by participating in things that they feel that they wanted to be a part of but did not have the ability to do so.

If we have an inclusive society, then it is for everyone, regardless of challenge or feeling, that one has towards the way that they present themselves in the outside world. They just want to do what they want to do without any issues or challenges.