The IL movement differs from traditional service providing organizations by emphasizing peer support, self-direction, and community integration by and for people with disabilities themselves. The IL model embraces the notion that rights and responsibilities are shared between citizens and the state, focusing on building a country based on the principles of inclusion, equality, affordability and justice. The Independent Living does not engage in collective advocacy. Instead, IL Movement promotes to institutionalize people living with disabilities and encourages and supports individuals to integrate into the community. While the aim of Independent Living is not to make a person "normal" in a physical or mental sense, the movement emphasizes the value of people with disabilities to have access to ordinary life experiences by providing community-based, stakeholder-controlled services, support, resources and skill trainings to enable people with disabilities to live an "ordinary life" in the community.

The Independent Living Movement was born out of the civil rights movement for persons with disabilities in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Consumer choice, autonomy and control define the Independent Living Movement. The independent living philosophy holds that individuals with disabilities have the right to live with dignity and with appropriate support in their own homes, fully participate in their communities, and to control and make decisions about their lives. It continues to operate under the independent living philosophy.

People with disabilities have expressed diverse views on Independent Living (IL). For some people, IL is to live with the same freedom of choice as non-disabled persons. It does not necessarily mean that you live on your own, but that you control where you live and have the same range of choices as a non-disabled person. One may highlight IL as an idea, a concept, a thought process that you can apply to your lifestyle, while others may conclude from one's own experience that IL means freedom to discover and actualize one's potential for work, friendship and so on with the assistance of assistive devices, or by hiring an assistant. Independent living implies defining one's own lifestyle.