The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities of the United Nations assigns an essential role to governments in setting up conditions conductive to the exercise of human rights by persons with disabilities. Chief among these conditions, and now an obligation of States under the Convention, is the provision of support services to people with disabilities. Historically, the development of support services has been characterized by a set of complex interactions involving in various degrees the role of the State and that of civil society actors such as the collective movement of independent living of persons with disabilities. Indeed, one important dimension of this movement is specifically linked to the development of services to support the exercise of human rights from a perspective of empowerment. Under the project DRPI-Canada, the data collected on the exercise of rights based on personal experiences allowed us to look at this area in a fresh and innovative manner. It is innovative in that it allows to link personal stories with the legislative, legal and politic framework defining the parameters of this area. The purpose of this paper is thus two fold. First, we will undertake a comparative analysis of the situation relating to support services at home in Toronto and Quebec grounded in the experiences of people with disabilities in both sites. Next we will place these stories in context - by exploring the mode of operation of these differentiated services. In addition to putting into perspective social practices within different contexts, this analysis will allow us to re-enroll these practices in the process of historical development of the rights movement of persons with disabilities.