EU must stop funding care homes, people with disabilities demand

“Our Voice Matters.”

Under this slogan, hundreds of people with disabilities from all over Europe gathered in Brussels on Tuesday to demand an end to their “segregation” from society.

Their main target: residential care homes, which, they say, stifle their freedom and autonomy and continue receiving European funding.

ENIL, the association that organised the demonstration, is calling for the closure of these spaces. According to Nadia Hadad, co-president of ENIL and a person with a disability, many people in care homes “are forced to live with people they don’t choose and are forced to have a system over which they have no control”.

And while she acknowledges some positive changes, she believes they are not enough. “Now everyone agrees that we don’t need to build big care homes, but small ones are still being built. But it’s the same culture,” she claims.

ENIL wants people with disabilities to have the capacity and resources to lead independent, self-governing lives outside care homes.

“We don’t want only to be seen as passive recipients of help,” says Florian Sanden, who also has a disability and took part in the demonstration. “We need forms of support that empower us, especially a personal budget and a personal assistant,” he added.

“Some people have no choice at all,” says Kamil Goungor, who also has a disability and is part of ENIL. This is the case for those who are put in residences, Goungor explains, or “those whose homes are not accessible or who don’t have an assistant”.

Goungor does have one, which makes his life easier. “We are not asking for something special. We are asking to have the same rights as others,” he argues.

EU funding under scrutiny

Tuesday’s demonstration passed in front of the headquarters of the European Commission and finished at the European Parliament with a clear objective: to ask the EU institutions to stop funding residential housing for disabled people.

“We have been trying for a long time to convince them to stop funding (care homes) and certain workshops with European funds and to invest in forms of support that empower people,” explains Sanden. This, he says, would mean fulfilling obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Hadad stressed their demand is not about taking people out of care houses and “releasing them into society,” but to flip the narrative and ensure disabled people have enough resources at their disposal to live outside these sheltered spaces.

“We need a timely strategic plan related to funding, human resources, and technical resources to emancipate us,” she went on, arguing that if this is not done, those affected “will ask to return to the care homes”.

The protest was part of the Freedom Drive, held every two years to defend the rights of people with disabilities.