Our Mission, History & Pledge

NOEWAIT is a grass-roots, national, social justice movement organized to ensure full opportunity, choices, freedom, and self-determination for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in every community by eliminating waitlists for services in every state. This will be accomplished through public education, mobilizing people into action, and changing public policy.

NOEWAIT operates under the umbrella of a nonprofit organization called Family Cafe, located in Florida, but is made up of organizers from all over the United States. Parents and advocates came together to address the national problem of decades-long waiting lists for community services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

We organized:

BECAUSE
Across the nation, people with intellectual and developmental disabilities wait years for services and supports and can not move freely from state to state or community to community.

BECAUSE
There must be adequate funding for lifetime services and supports needed by our most vulnerable family members, without gaps or delays.

BECAUSE
Funding must be available in all states, portable across and within states and promote self-determination for the individual with the disability, their families and legal guardians.

WE PLEDGE
To unite the efforts of families, providers, government agencies, advocacy groups and citizens to change laws and policies across the country and eliminate waiting lists for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.