HCBS: Living MY Life, My Way - LaToya

The photographs in this collection feature Pennsylvanians with disabilities who use HCBS — Home and Community-Based Services — to live the life they choose. HCBS provides supports and services that empower a person to live in the community of their choice rather than a nursing home, state intellectual disability center, or other congregate care setting.

LaToya - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

As an Independent Living Specialist in Philadelphia, LaToya works to ensure that people with disabilities can make their own choices about where they live, and how and where they travel.

LaToya, on the sidewalk in Philadelphia, poses with a woman, a gold shovel with a red bow balanced between them

LaToya currently chairs the SEPTA Citizens Advisory Committee.

LaToya, a Black woman using a wheelchair on a Philadelphia sidewalk, smiles with a woman next to a large planter filled with fresh soil, ceremonial shovels with red bows leaning against it

She also co-leads a support group for parents with disabilities called Momma Chronicles Too.

Close-up portrait of LaToya, smiling with a sparkle in her eyes

A little over 17 years ago, I left a residential institution I lived at for approximately 10 years. I was able to leave because Home and Community-Based Services were available to me. People with disabilities want to live and work in their local communities. As an Independent Living Specialist, I work to ensure that people with disabilities can make their own choices about where they live, and how and where they travel. HCBS helps make the life I want possible for me.

Temple University Logo

LaToya

This project is supported by a grant from the Pennsylvania Developmental Disabilities Council; in part by grant #1901PASCDD-02, from the U.S. Administration for Community Living, Department of Health and Human Services, Washington, D.C. 20201. Grantees undertaking projects with government sponsorship are encouraged to express freely their findings and conclusions. Points of view or opinions do not, therefore, necessarily represent official ACL policy.

For more information please contact

215-204-1356

For more information, please contact


215-204-1356