A/HRC/28/37 replaced with families, extended families or foster-care systems. Specific steps should be taken to avoid further institutionalization in the transition from care to aftercare.22 26. Deinstitutionalization should include public and private institutions to avoid transfer from one to the other, and target all persons with disabilities, without exception. Real options need to be made available to persons moving out of an institution: community living arrangements should not be established and monitored by the institution itself. The Government of Finland is currently implementing programmes providing individual housing and community services for persons with intellectual disabilities, with a deadline of 2020 for full deinstitutionalization. Support is particularly important in the transition from institutional to community living and should include individualized assessment, information, counselling, housing and income assistance. Such support should be based on effective coordination among health-care and social-service providers, and the housing sector. The programme “I, just like you” implemented in Croatia has provided persons with intellectual and psychosocial disabilities in institutions with individual planning and skills development as a preparation for life in the community. Continued support is provided even after the project’s beneficiaries move to community-based arrangements. In the Republic of Korea, some local governments provide resettlement benefits to help persons with disabilities discharged from institutions to live independently in local communities. 27. The cost of deinstitutionalization should be addressed by a reallocation of resources, which may require targeted investments, particularly in the initial phase, effective partnerships and prioritization. Adequate resources need to be available to build the new support infrastructure — both accessible mainstream community services and specific support services — prior to altering the balance of service provision. Funding opportunities should be directed to sustaining systemic reforms. For instance, in the new European Union structural funds regulations for 2014–2020, the availability of funding is closely linked to deinstitutionalization through a number of ex ante conditionalities. Community-based services should exist alongside institutions during the transition phase, necessitating double funding. Studies have demonstrated that after the initial phase, community-based services are not necessarily more expensive than institutional services; on the contrary, they are more cost-effective and provide higher quality services.23 The comparison of the costs of institutional care and those of community-based services should also take into account the long-term impact of deinstitutionalization, including the fiscal implications of a higher number of persons with disabilities being part of the workforce and household income.24 B. Support 1. Community support services 28. Support services are essential for enabling persons with disabilities to live independently and be included in the community; they are also an indispensable element of deinstitutionalization. Article 19 (b) of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities requires States parties to ensure that persons with disabilities have access to a 22 23 24 See Committee on the Rights of the Child, general comment No. 9, paras. 47–49, and the Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children, in particular paras. 3, 14, 22, 34 and 132. See WHO and World Bank, World Report, p. 149, and Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, “The right of people with disabilities to live independently”, p. 32. On the impact of employment of persons with disabilities on the gross domestic product, see, for instance, Sebastian Buckup, “The price of exclusion: the economic consequences of excluding people with disabilities from the world of work”, Employment Working Paper No. 43 (International Labour Office, 2009). 9