Alliance Alert: The Alliance for Rights and Recovery strongly supports the yesterday’s letter led by New York Governor Kathy Hochul calling on the federal government to protect the Olmstead integration mandate and the right of people with disabilities to live and receive services in their communities. We strongly agree with the governors’ call to reject federal actions that weaken protections against segregation and instead strengthen home- and community-based services, supportive housing, employment opportunities, and other supports that make true community integration possible. We are especially encouraged by Governor Hochul’s leadership in spearheading this effort, continuing to position New York as a national leader in protecting disability rights.
This leadership comes at a critical moment. In June, the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel issued an opinion questioning the longstanding legal framework surrounding the right to community integration, and in July DOJ announced that it would no longer rely on its 2011 Olmstead guidance. The governors rightly warn that these actions have created uncertainty and raised fears that our nation could move backward toward mass institutionalization. The threat became even more urgent this week with the proposed agreement in Texas v. Kennedy, which seeks to remove key community integration provisions from federal Section 504 regulations. While this agreement would not erase the rights established by Olmstead, the ADA, or Section 504, it represents another deeply concerning retreat from the federal government’s longstanding role in protecting people with disabilities from segregation.
For the Alliance, the answer to gaps in our service systems is not weakening civil rights protections or making institutionalization easier. It is building stronger community systems that give people real choices, including accessible housing, voluntary mental health and substance use services, peer support, employment opportunities, crisis services, and intensive community-based supports. As the governors emphasize, community integration means much more than where someone receives services; it means having a home, working, attending school, building relationships, and participating fully in community life.
These issues will be front and center at the Alliance Annual Conference, September 23–25 in Albany, where we will feature a special panel on Olmstead and the Future of the Integration Mandate with national legal and disability rights experts. The panel will examine the rapidly changing federal landscape and what advocates, providers, policymakers, and people with lived experience can do to defend our rights and continue building the community-based system Olmstead promised.
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