These developments in Kansas City just did not happen. It meant an arousal of concern and interest. It meant long and careful planning and the expenditure of untold energy on the part of many people. Also it meant the cooperative pooling of skills and services and the provision of funds, partly private and partly Federal-State, to promote and develop these worthwhile undertakings. A great deal of the groundwork was laid in the establishment of the rehabilitation center of which I am director, because in a widespread community and agency participation in its formation and development, Kansas City became rehabilitation-conscious and began to realize that rehabilitation pays dividends, both economic and humanitarian.

In 1946, many of us working professionally with and for the disabled, were distressed because we had to declare so many people nonfeasible for vocational rehabilitation. They were so seriously disabled that we had no facility where a coordinated approach could be had-medical, psychological, and social-to attack these multiple problems.

We together with the community leaders interested in the disabled, set out to overcome this lack. For a year and a half a tremendous amount of effort on the part of professional personnel who came from Miss Shover's organization that she just testified about, from the Society of Crippled Children, and public agencies on vocational rehabilitation, and others, and with key community leaders working very hard to create interest and support until the Rehabilitation Institute was actually incorporated-for a year and a half these people contributed. Remember, there were no laws existing and there are none now that provide for basic grants or provisions for helping in the establishment of such a center, or to expand any center.

So what we have done is this: We literally begged, borrowed-and maybe not quite literally stole-to get the building and equipment and staff to start. Everybody helped.

Federal-State programs, besides giving leadership in the promotion, gave support through the referral of their clients for services and also the use of their specialized personnel to augment our staff. Private agencies gave as much as possible of the same type of help; and organizations and individuals gave of their time and funds to the best of their ability.

Why is this important? I sat here these 2 days and listened to the statements on the worth of a rehabilitation center in the overall rehabilitation program. I feel it is intensely important to the total rehabilitation program. You remember, I said I was once a rehabilitation counselor and I was made familiar with these problems.

I can remember, and it seems like a simple thing, when we bought an arm or a leg for a client and went to his home and found him unable to use it because of a poor fit, or he did not have any place where to learn to use it. So what do you have today? In the centers we have trained teams available who will evaluate the stump and find out if it is ready for fitting, and give proper exercise and all that is necessary to prepare it for fitting. They will make a realistic prescription in terms of what a man or woman is going to do-what work they will perform-and then train them in their use. That program saves a great deal of money and effort. We feel it important to our total program. We feel a disabled person may need a variety of services.

Many of them are nonmedical, and this is to prepare him for job training and placement. Such training is available in good rehabilitation centers. For instance, treatment, work therapy, or development of work tolerance, speech therapy, psychological evaluations, personal and vocational counseling and social service, to name but a few of the things necessary for preparing a person for training or a job. These can be found in a center.

One of the things we have been able to do and I say as a very real benefit and I can always look at this from two sides of the fencefrom the side of the counselor trying to solve the client's problems, and from trying to provide the services-is the evaluation of a client's Vocational potentialities. That is not just through testing for aptitudes, but through a complete appraisal of physical, mental, and social capacities, so that the rehabilitation counselor can help his client work out a realistic vocational goal in terms of that client's total assets.

These are but a few of the ways that the rehabilitation center can help to provide vocational rehabilitation with needed services. On the other hand, we need the vocational rehabilitation program and a strong one. We need it to help us bear the costs of the treatment and services for these patients through the referral of our clients.

We need their help in providing vocational counseling for our patients, and to complete the total rehabilitation of those served by the center-the medical costs, training on the outside, and so forthand numerous ways which are not possible in the center itself or through community funds.

The Rehabilitation Institute, to show you how these things are financed on a local level, has been financed up to the present time and on the present level-and I want to say that because there are so many things yet to be done-by fees, such as are paid by vocational rehabilitation for its clients, and by funds provided by such groups as the National Society for Crippled Children, the Junior League, the National Foundation for Polio, the Kansas City Association of Trusts and Foundations, the Community Chest, and many others. But the demand for our services is growing so tremendously that we are now receiving patients from a four-State area, whereas we were set up actually to serve our own local people.

These demands, I think, point up several things:

One, we need to grow bigger if we are going to serve a bigger area and more people.

Also, there is a need in other areas than ours.

The present bills, S. 2758 and S. 2759 can help to broaden these services materially. They can stimulate the growth of community rehabilitation centers, for whatever we can accomplish on a local level is only possible through a strong Federal-State program which will serve as the background or the core of a continuous program. These bills being considered today will allow the support to help local areas to start rehabilitation centers, sheltered workshops, or expand existing ones to meet the tremendous need, and also help launch and sustain such projects as are described in the other part.

I will add my nickel's worth to the part where we will train personnel. That is a very real and vital part of this act you are considering.

We have made a start-yes-as a community, and other communities have done the same. But it will take expanded funds on the Federal level and the State level and on the level of local communities if we are even going to begin to reach the people that need it, because I feel very much we are at the crossroads in this program of rehabilitation. We can continue to serve only a portion of those needing the rehabilitation as the present financing allows, or we can launch out in a practical and positive way to meet the need by providing the funds necessary to get the total job done.

Nothing is impossible if we have the faith and the courage just to launch out and take proper steps.

There are one or two things about the two bills before you--the Vocational rehabilitation bill-or the Hill-Burton, or the long proper name it has we feel that buildings and facilities are a part of this needed program, and under that bill communities can launch these services that I have suggested. But under the bill for the vocational rehabilitation they face a tremendous loss if we do not do something about the restrictive language that was placed in the appropriation bill last spring.

I have been telling you what we can do if you all see fit to bring these things into being. But in the State of Missouri alone-and there is a comparable figure in Kansas-we stand to lose $126,000 if that restrictive language is carried in there. There is nothing we can do about it, as far as our States are concerned. Hundreds of people will not have the opportunity for rehabilitation and may well remain recipients of public assistance if something is not done.

As Mr. Power told you earlier, there are in Missouri and Kansas City a backlog of people, and I can name them down the list, that I know personally, who are waiting until July 1 for the next allotment of funds to start their vocational rehabilitation program. What happens if there is none and there is this restriction of funds? We will not even be able to serve those already there. I hope you all through some temporary measure will be able to correct that until the action is resolved on the bills before you.

The other concern-which I am not going into the technicalities involved on because I am probably not qualified to-is that I hope while the transition period is being carried out, in some way the Congress will see that no State is cut below the level at which it is now operating. For that would be a great tragedy and defeat the basic purpose of this legislation, which is to provide more service for more people.

May I close my verbal statement with just a little story which will illustrate the things I have tried to point out-the necessity for cooperation in both the provision of services and funds to achieve total rehabilitation of an individual, and also what rehabilitation can mean to the disabled. Because the worth of this program cannot be all figured in economic terms alone.

Let me tell you about a boy 16 years old, who was a sophomore in high school. He was riding in a car with friends and this car was sideswiped so that he received a very severe spinal injury which left him completely paralyzed below the hips. He spent 2 years in a hospital. He returned to his home, which was a very inadequate farm home off the main highway. Before that he had to walk a mile and

a half to catch a bus in order to go to high school. Therefore education was out. Finally, through coperative services he was brought to the institute and it was necessary to find a foster home in our city. The Family and Children's Service, a local agency, provided a home and care there for him.

At the institute he was taught to walk and to get in and out of his chair. He was taught to be able to care for himself. In occupational therapy he was tried in a variety of skills in order to find his skill. Our psychologist did a very complete evaluation on him and began to explore his vocational possibilities.

Vocational rehabilitation entered that story at that point and provided the training for the boy in watch repair. I can say now that for 14 months Louis has been employed successfully. His employer is well satisfied. The boy is now about 20. He was 18 when he came to us. He is carrying his own support and is paying taxes. But the greatest thing, I think, is that he was taken out of a life of despondency and dependency into a full life of self-respect and selfsupport. It was done through the cooperative efforts of private and public agencies.

This was a simple story. I did not tell you some of the perhaps more dramatic ones. This may be the future for many thousands more, if adequate legislation is provided to extend these programs. I want to thank you again. I have simply told you a simple story of rehabilitation in action down on the local level, but I appreciate your hearing, and there are any questions I would be most happy to answer them.

Senator GOLDWATER. Thank you very much, Mrs. Shepherd. Senator Hill.

Senator HILL. Mrs. Shepherd, I want to thank you for your statement. I notice that last sentence about adequate legislation. Does not this matter draw itself up pretty much into the question of adequate appropriations and funds?

Mrs. SHEPHERD. That is right. Funds.

Senator HILL. Adequate funds.

Mrs. SHEPHERD. That is where we are stymied all across the way. Senator HILL. Where you are stymied all across the way is the matter of funds?

Mrs. SHEPHERD. That is right.

Senator HILL. Do you think this bill will bring you more funds than present legislation?

Mrs. SHEPHERD. I would think so, because I have been speaking primarily in the area in which I am working now, but I am familiar with the other program. I think we must tackle this realistically. I am not going to say we are going to save the Federal Government at this point or any other. I think we have to expand our appropriation for funds on the Federal and State level and in the local communities.

Senator HILL. In other words, we have to augment our funds on all three levels?

Mrs. SHEPHERD. That is right.

Senator HILL. Federal, State, and local?

Mrs. SHEPHERD. That is right.

Senator HILL. Without an extension of those funds, of course, you cannot extend your programs?

LIBRARIES

Mrs. SHEPHERD. NO. And I will say this: In the month of March we had 106 new patients sent to us, in a small center. There is a tremendous number of new people seeking such services, and we have been gradually growing every month.

Senator HILL. Have you had the funds with which to take care of these additional people?

MIS. SHEPHERD. We have funds up to a certain point, but we are heing asked to do many things. For instance, we need some inpatient beds for those out in the rural areas to be brought in to us, and things of that sort, which would be possible under the legislation which you are considering.

Senator HILL. If the appropriations were made?

Mrs. SHEPHERD. Yes, if the appropriations were made.

Senator HILL. You got some funds under the Hospital Reconstruction Act for your psychiatric receiving station, did you not? Mrs. SHEPHERD. That is right. And we are tremendously proud of our achievement. But as I see the present legislation it will not allow us to provide the rehabilitation centers and the sheltered workshops.

Senator HILL. You mean, in your vocational training?

Mrs. SHEPHERD. That is right.

Senator HILL. And overall center?

Mrs. SHEPHERD. That is right.

Senator HILL. That is all.

Senator GOLDWATER. I was interested in that last remark of yours, that the present act does not provide for any funds for that construction. However, the present bills do provide for that?

Mrs. SHEPHERD. That is what I meant.

Senator GOLDWATER. I wanted to bring that out. Thank you very much, Mrs. Shepherd, for your testimony. We appreciated your coming here, very much.

Mrs. SHEPPARD. Thank you so much.

Senator GOLDWATER. The next witness is Mr. Robert Barnett, executive director of the American Foundation for the Blind.

You may proceed in any way you see fit, either using your prepared text, or departing from it. Your statement will be made a part of the record.

STATEMENT OF PETER SALMON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE INDUSTRIAL HOME FOR THE BLIND, BROOKLYN, N. Y., APPEARING IN BEHALF OF M. ROBERT BARNETT, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE AMERICAN FOUNDATION FOR THE BLIND

Mr. SALMON. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, in case you might think Mr. Barnett has grown old overnight, Mr. Barnett could not attend. His wife has been quite sick although she has been feeling much better today. She was in the hospital yesterday. So, Mr. Barnett asked me if I would appear for him, and I am very pleased to do so.

In view of the fact that I am making a statement for another person, and also in view of the fact that this is quite short-and I can get through it in about 5 or 6 minutes-perhaps I will read it to you. Ordinarily I would prepare my own summary in braille, and I have