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The Community Living Education Project (CLEP)
Rutgers logo
The Community Living Education Project (CLEP)
Disability Pride Flag

This year's Disability Pride Month is coming at an uncertain time for many individuals receiving Medicaid. Many important and worthy disability organizations are also facing proposed federal and state budget cuts, and this landscape of funding uncertainty creates tremendous stress and uncertainty for the individuals relying on their services.

Now is an especially critical time to uplift, empower, and celebrate friends, family, and neighbors with disabilities. We hope you will plan ways large and small to celebrate Disability Pride Month throughout the month of July.

Cover of Magazine and Phone

We are excited to share the second digital edition of our magazine, My Life Now.

After a successful decade as a print magazine, The Community Living Education Project (CLEP) re-launched this publication in an online and interactive format.

Our mission for this publication remains the same: to spotlight individuals who have transitioned from developmental centers, nursing homes, or family homes to vibrant community settings.  We celebrate their journeys of empowerment and self-discovery and share how they have embraced choice and control in their lives.

Each issue tells the story one individual CLEP has supported as they explored community living options. In this second edition, we introduce Shannon Lewis and her mother, Anna Marie Perrone. 

CLEP Logo

Last week, the Community Living Education Project shared the challenging news that our funding is slated to be cut in the NJ Governor's Proposed FY26 Budget. After 33 years of service to New Jersey residents with intellectual and developmental disabilities, this has been incredibly difficult news to share with the individuals and families we serve, our colleagues, friends, and supporters. 

Diverse group of people

Medicaid is the lifeline that provides people with disabilities the ability to choose where to live and who will support them, in addition to providing health care to citizens with low income and disabilities. It is a joint federal and state program enacted in 1965 by President Lyndon B. Johnson as part of Social Security Amendments.

Cuts to Medicaid will affect everyone, regardless of your political affiliation. It is something that should unite all self-advocates, family members, service providers, friends, co-workers, and employers.