Disability Rights Californa's Power Building Unit works to confront deep poverty, discriminatory commitment systems, and inequities in behavioral health - core disability justice issues. We change systems through community education, shared leadership, collective work, and open access to information.

Our purpose is to build community, influence, and power, while improving quality of life for disabled people in areas like health, housing, and poverty. Disability rights is a growing and evolving community. We work with people who formally identify as disabled and with people who do not, because many are excluded from disability systems, and because poverty itself is disabling.

How We Work

• We de-silo our work and our relationships.
• We bring in people of all walks of life.
• We expand the definition of disability.
• We build coalitions across teams, communities, and industries.
• We cultivate and support disabled leaders.
• We share knowledge widely and openly.

Our Values

• Everyone is valued. You don’t have to meet a certain standard of ability or education to participate in.
• Power belongs to the collective. No single person or small group holds it.
• Shared leadership matters. We actively promote many voices speaking publicly, rather than concentrating power or visibility in a few individuals.
• Community education is essential. Information should help people, not be kept from them.

Where We Sit at DRC

The Power Building Unit is housed within DRC’s Investigations and Self-Advocacy Unit because the program is built around effective advocacy driven by community engagement and investment. The Power Building Unit can enhance and lift-up critical investigative outcome into the abuses against people with disabilities by mobilizing communities, including peers with lived experience, to lead reform efforts to create safety and opportunity wherever people with disabilities are housed or receive services.

Current Initiatives: Ending Poverty Traps, Improving Behavioral Health, Clarifying the Continuum of Care, and Raising Awareness of the Civil Commitment Process

Resources

• The Ballooning Crisis: Acute Services vs. Organized Care - The state continues an unbalanced and dangerous approach to mental health care
• Turning the Tide on Overdose: Can Prop 1 Deliver on Its Promise?
• Disability Poverty Traps, Part One: This Is Our Money