GUEST COLUMN: JANET SULLIVAN

My 29-year-old son Michael has autism and an intellectual disability and would be considered severely disabled.

He has worked at Goodwill of the Heartland's work training center for more than seven years. Michael works because he chooses to work. He loves to work. Work gives him much more than a paycheck; it gives him a sense of meaning and purpose, the pride that comes from a job well done, and a structured environment with the support to succeed.

Sadly, changes at the federal, state and county levels are threatening to deny Michael - and 15,000 other severely disabled Iowans - the opportunity to work.

In a well-intentioned but misguided effort to move people like Michael into competitive community employment, government bureaucrats are taking measures to close work centers.

In states like Vermont where work centers have been forced to close, the result has been massive unemployment for people with the most severe disabilities.

Yet bureaucrats and political leaders here in Iowa and Linn County continue to promote an unrealistic ideal that all people with disabilities should be able to work in community settings with the able-bodied.

Those who have succumbed to this fantasy are changing rules and denying funding in an attempt to close work centers such as Options of Linn County, REM and Goodwill of the Heartland.

What these utopias can't seem to understand is that there are many people who are not realistic candidates for competitive employment.

Despite significant improvement, Michael still exhibits challenging behaviors such as making loud noises, jumping up and down, or running up to someone just to touch them.

People with autism simply are wired differently from the rest of us. Michael can become overwhelmed at times, which triggers these behaviors. He's only 20 percent to 30 percent as productive at work as a person without disabilities. Michael's behavior and productivity would make it difficult for a community employer to hire him, even with supports.

It takes the special, supportive environment that Goodwill of the Heartland provides for Michael to work, grow and flourish.

That is why the U.S. Supreme Court, in the Olmstead ruling on illegal segregation of people with disabilities, specifically made exceptions for both personal choice and the 'appropriateness” of community integration.

Yet President Barack Obama's Department of Justice continues to sue states that maintain work centers and recently issued Medicaid rules that will lead to their elimination.

Iowa has stopped funding assessments in work centers, and Linn and Johnson counties are on the verge of eliminating work center funding - even though work centers cost taxpayers less than day habilitation, the only other alternative for those with the most severe disabilities.

It's time for state and county leaders to act. Support work centers as an employment option for those with the most severe disabilities. Let Michael work!

' Janet Sullivan resides in Marion. Comments: css7777@mchsi.com