Alliance Alert: As we mark the 36th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Alliance for Rights and Recovery joins our partners in the POWER (People Organized for Wellness, Empowerment, and Recovery) Coalition in celebrating this landmark civil rights law and recommitting ourselves to protecting the rights it guarantees. The ADA and the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Olmstead v. L.C. decision established critical protections against discrimination and institutionalization, affirming the right of people with disabilities to receive services in integrated community settings. Yet that promise has still not been fully realized, and recent federal actions threatening Olmstead and the integration mandate make defending these protections more urgent than ever.
The Alliance is an active member of the POWER Coalition, and we share its commitment to protecting the rights of people with disabilities, promoting recovery, and expanding voluntary, community-based services. We will continue fighting for the full realization of the ADA and Olmstead by advocating for housing, peer support, crisis alternatives, recovery services, and other supports that allow people to live and thrive in their communities.
We will also continue working alongside national organizations and coalitions like POWER to push back against efforts to weaken the integration mandate or expand institutionalization and coercive treatment. On this ADA anniversary, we join POWER in declaring that we refuse to go backwards! We will defend the progress already won and continue fighting for the freedom, dignity, choice, and community inclusion of people with disabilities.
“We Refuse to Go Backwards”: The POWER Coalition Marks
ADA Anniversary with National Campaign to Defend Community Freedom
(July 24, 2026) As the Trump Administration seeks to incarcerate people with mental health and addiction conditions in long-term institutions and expand involuntary treatment, the POWER (People Organized for Wellness, Empowerment, and Recovery) Coalition renewed its commitment to protecting rights and promoting recovery by releasing a series of video public statements in commemoration of the 36th Anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The videos are the latest action in the Coalition’s growing campaign to defend rights, promote equity and expand opportunities for recovery.
“The ADA brought freedom, liberty and bodily autonomy to those of us with disabilities,” stated
POWER Coalition Co-Chair Arc Telos Saint Amour. “We will not stand silent while those rights are taken away.”
Recently, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) issued an opinion memo that seeks to overturn the landmark U.S. Supreme Court’s Olmstead decision that upheld the ADA’s mandate for community integration. This week, the DOJ retracted key guidance on enforcing the integration mandate.
To highlight the importance of the ADA, the Olmstead decision, and community integration, The
POWER Coalition released a series of public statements by Steering Committee members including:
- Lynda Gargan, Executive Director, National Federation of Families
- Paolo del Vecchio, (he/him) Founder, Recovery Rising
- Arc Telos Saint Amour (they/them), Executive Director, Youth MOVE National
- Fran Silvestri (he/him), Founder and Former President and CEO, International Initiative on Mental Health Leadership
- Vesper Moore (he/they), Chief Operating Officer, Kiva Centers
“Our goal is to maintain freedom for our people – not just freedom from the shackles of institutional care and forced treatment, but the freedom to create your own life,” proclaimed Laura Van Tosh, POWER Coalition Steering Committee member and Mental Health Policy Roundtable founder.
The POWER Coalition was formed in January 2026 at a national summit of peer advocacy leaders in Massachusetts. Since then, the Coalition has taken action to counter the Trump Administration efforts to weaken rights protections and opportunities for recovery:
- Protecting Voting Rights – in March, the POWER Coalition released a statement and launched a series of actions to oppose the SAVE Act, urging Congress to fully protect rather than limit access to voting. In further response, the Coalition is undertaking a voter education
and registration drive to encourage people with lived experiences of mental health and addiction conditions to cast their ballots to make their voices count.
- Promoting Federal Investment in Recovery Support Services – in May, the POWER Coalition convened a Congressional briefing to encourage investment in critical services and advance real solutions to strengthen behavioral health systems nationwide.
- Addressing Human Rights Violations by ICE – in June, the Coalition issued a call for justice in the tragic death of Daphy Michel, a person with mental health conditions, who was left on a Pittsburgh public bench in February by ICE with only a hooded sweatshirt before succumbing to hypothermia. Her death was ruled a homicide by the Alleghany County Medical Examiner.
- Bringing Evidence to Counter Re-Institutionalization and Involuntary Treatment – this month, the Coalition compiled key evidence and research findings that document the push for increasing psychiatric hospitalization and forced treatment – particularly for people of color – while showing the benefits of community care. The data also reveal that the American public overwhelmingly supports voluntary community care – including peer support – rather than involuntary treatment measures.
- Mobilizing Rights and Recovery Advocates to Petition the Government – Also this month, the POWER Coalition has called for advocates to join together and ask Congress to counter the Administration’s push to re-institutionalize and force treatment on American citizens. As a result, upwards of 2,000 people have signed on to a petition to Support Mental Health &Addictions Recovery: Just Say No to Long-Term Institutional Care.
“We refuse to go backwards to the back wards of psychiatric hospitals,” stated POWER Coalition
Co-Chair Paolo del Vecchio, “In celebration of the anniversary of the ADA, we deserve the right to be back home with our family and friends not isolated, abandoned and abused in institutions.
For more information on the POWER Coalition see: supportrecovery.us
Contact:
Arc Telos Saint Amour (they/them): telos@youthmovenational.org
Paolo del Vecchio (he/him): pdv1820@gmail.com
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Our mission is to strengthen holistic health, rights protection and wellbeing in the United States for people experiencing mental health and/or addiction conditions and their communities (families, neighborhoods, etc.), through national advocacy and activism, and system and policy reform.