Personal Assistance - Independent Living
"Personal Assistance" allows disabled people to live an independent life. This modell of living is based on receiving aid not as an act of pure charity, but as payed job which must fulfill specific quality standards needed from the disabled person. It is about receiving assistance in the way the assisted (disabled) person wants it. Time, location, extend and sort of assistance is also determined by the disabled themselves.
This way of living is mostly not possible in care homes, that's why about 30 years ago the "Independent-Living-Movement" started in the USA as well as the "Personal Assistance" in Europe, as an alternative to the until then offered help in common care homes.
Nowadays it is possible for disabled people to receive an amount of money directly from governmental institutions and from health insurance companies, so that they themselves can choose and pay the people who will assist them in their daily lives.
Care homes and the institutions which maintain them are mostly concerned about maximizing profit and / or minimizing costs, often with great disadvantages in the quality of care for the people living there. This care homes have also often hierachical and even dictatorial structures.
Such structures are not compatible with human rights.