Alliance Alert: Earlier this week, our CEO Harvey Rosenthal joined disability advocates at the Most Integrated Setting Coordinating Council (MISCC) meeting to once again call on New York State to release a comprehensive Olmstead Plan.
The need for that plan has never been more urgent. This summer, the U.S. Department of Justice issued a new legal opinion rejecting the longstanding federal interpretation that the ADA and Section 504 impose an integration mandate on states, a significant change from the federal government’s previous approach to enforcing Olmstead. These federal actions create serious concerns about weakened protections against institutionalization and make strong state leadership increasingly important.
The Alliance was proud to see Governor Hochul stand firmly behind Olmstead and the rights of people with disabilities to receive services and supports in their communities. Now is the time for New York to turn that commitment into a concrete plan with measurable goals, timelines and accountability.
An Olmstead Plan should show how New York will continue to uphold the integration mandate and ensure that more people with disabilities have the services, housing and opportunities they need to live, work, learn and recover in the communities of their choice. It should identify where people remain institutionalized or segregated, what barriers prevent them from moving into or remaining in their communities, and what investments and policy changes are needed to address those barriers.
As Harvey told the MISCC, New York has made significant investments in mental health, housing, disability and community services. Now we need a plan that connects those investments to measurable improvements in people’s lives.
With federal protections facing new challenges, New York cannot afford further delay. We urge the state to release the Olmstead Plan, establish measurable goals, fund those goals and publicly report on progress.
The promise of Olmstead is more than getting people out of institutions. It is ensuring that New Yorkers with disabilities have a meaningful opportunity to live full lives as members of their communities, and to have the supports necessary to stay there.
Advocates Decry Yet Another Delay in Release of NYS Disability Plan
September 30, 2026
The Board, members and staff of the Alliance of Rights and Recovery and our partners are outraged that the state’s Most Integrated Setting Coordinating Council (MISCC), New York’s body tasked with creating a statewide Olmstead Plan, will once again leave a meeting without a new plan that 2.5 million New Yorkers with disabilities have been promised over the last 13 years.
We have heard about process. We participated in meetings. Disability communities have provided input. State agencies have been making their own calculations and recommendations.
Deadlines and expectations have come and gone. And still, we have no plan.
This would be unacceptable at any time. It is especially unacceptable now.
At the very moment that the federal government is retreating from its historic responsibility to enforce the Americans with Disabilities Act’s (ADA) integration mandate, New York has publicly proclaimed that it stands firmly behind the Olmstead v. L.C. decision and the civil rights of people with disabilities.
Earlier this month, we were very proud to see Governor Hochul lead the way by enlisting a group of 18 governors to send a lettercalling on the Trump Administration to continue the federal government’s longstanding support for community-based care and the rights of people with disabilities to live with dignity in their own communities.
Those words really mattered and they underscore the urgent need for New York to develop and implement a meaningful Olmstead plan.
The Supreme Court’s landmark 1999 Olmstead v. L.C. decision affirmed that the unjustified segregation of people with disabilities is discrimination under the ADA. The decision established that people with disabilities have a right to receive services in the most integrated setting appropriate to their needs, rather than being unnecessarily confined to institutions or segregated settings.
Olmstead helped create a fundamental expectation for states: they must do more than fund individual programs. They must have a meaningful strategy for helping people with disabilities move from institutions and other segregated settings into their communities, and for ensuring that people have the housing, services, employment opportunities and other supports necessary to remain fully included there.
New York has invested billions of dollars in mental health, housing, disability and community services, and we have strongly welcomed many of those investments.
But the state budget tells us what government spends. An Olmstead Plan tells us whether people’s lives are actually changing.
- How many New Yorkers remain unnecessarily institutionalized or segregated?
- How many are waiting for housing and community supports?
- Are people moving successfully into their communities—and staying there?
- Are New Yorkers with disabilities gaining real opportunities to work, learn and live alongside everyone else?
- Where is New York succeeding, where is it falling short, and what exactly will we do about it—and by when?
These are not abstract policy questions. Olmstead is a civil rights mandate. People with disabilities should not have to wait year after year for the state to produce a plan describing how it intends to honor the rights they already have.
Almost three months ago, I wrote that if the federal government walks away from Olmstead, New York must respond.
We are still waiting for that response.
It is unconscionable to make New Yorkers with disabilities wait any longer.
We need more than another assurance that the plan is coming.
If we are not going to see an Olmstead Plan today, the state Administration must provide us, before our December meeting and, critically, ahead of the state budget, with the extensive plan they’ve told us they’re finalizing to ensure that we don’t miss yet another critical opportunity to turn our words in measurable actions.
Release the plan. Set measurable goals. Fund those goals. Report publicly on the results. And finally make the full promise of Olmstead real in New York.
Harvey Rosenthal, CEO, Alliance for Rights and Recovery
MISCC Public Member since 2002
518-527-0564
HarveyR@rightsandrecovery.org