Trailblazers 2025: Honoring the Stories That Shape Our Journey 

Trailblazers 2025: Honoring the Stories That Shape Our Journey 

This year, our Trailblazers event centered on the stories that connect us. As we continue through our rebranding process and look to the future of Search, we feel it is important to share our history with our community. We couldn’t begin this new chapter without reflecting on the past that has shaped us. 

Since 1968, Search has been dedicated to advocating for the full inclusion of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD). Search was founded by a parent group in the Cabrini-Green neighborhood of Chicago who worked together to encourage the acceptance of their children into the public school system. As this group of children began to age, Search naturally transitioned into adult care for people with I/DD.  

During the 1990s, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) passed. It was a landmark civil rights law that prohibited discrimination based on disability, affording people with disabilities similar protections to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited discrimination based on race, sex, color, religion and national origin.  

Despite these sweeping changes, people with IDD were still outcasted from their communities, mostly living in institutions and undergoing what was known as “warehousing,” or putting people with IDD in large facilities with little time spent outside in the community.  

Search began opening community group homes for people with I/DD to fight against warehousing and institutionalization. To open these homes, Search faced significant pushback from neighbors. In 1990, when Search began the process of opening our New England home in Norwood Park, there was a town hall with protests and significant press coverage. People felt that having people with IDD in the neighborhood could be dangerous and bring down their property values. With the lack of community exposure people with I/DD experienced due to being warehoused, neighbors were afraid and unfamiliar with people with disabilities, causing them to speak up against their inclusion. 

Search went above and beyond during these challenging times to promote the acceptance of people with I/DD, bringing neighbors gifts, helping shovel their driveways and building friendships to show neighbors that the residents of the home belonged in the community just like them. In 1996, as a notoriously unsafe facility closed, Search opened nine homes in six months to house people who could have otherwise become homeless. 

Over time, as neighbors got to know people with I/DD, they began to see them as friends and accepted them into the community. At Search, people found a loving, caring and accepting environment as they transitioned from institutions, where they often faced abuse and neglect, to community homes.   

Today, community living homes operate similarly to other houses in the neighborhood, participating in block parties, community festivals and other recreational events. With the ongoing threats to Medicaid and other community services, we must remember the not-so-distant past ostracization of people with disabilities from their communities. Search is committed to continuing our mission of inclusion in the face of these threats.   

Stories like this are at the heart of Trailblazers 2025. They remind us that meaningful change doesn’t come easily, but with compassion, persistence, and a belief in inclusion, it can be achieved.  

As we continue our journey towards a more inclusive society, Trailblazers 2025 is a celebration of the progress we have made and the individuals who have been instrumental in our success. Our Search community, including staff, supporters and advocates, plays a crucial role in this advocacy. We could not have come this far without your support. Thank you all!