Advocates Face Uphill Quest for More Money

Richard Royse began a career working with developmentally disabled people in California about 40 years ago, in the afterglow of lawmakers’ approval of the Lanterman Act, which put the state at the forefront of helping people historically warehoused in state-run institutions and forgotten.

After working around the country, Royse returned last year to lead Sacramento’s InAlliance, a nonprofit that provides housing, employment and other services to clients with developmental and intellectual disabilities.

 What he encountered shocked him, he said. “We won the entitlement war,” he said, referring to the Lanterman law, “but we’re losing the funding battle.”

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