Celebrating
the Anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act
July 26, 2022
by Alison Barkoff, Acting Administrator and Assistant
Secretary for Aging
On July 26, 1990, the Americans with
Disabilities Act (ADA) was signed into law, establishing a
national expectation of accessibility, inclusion and full
participation – and creating a promise of justice and
equity – for disabled people of all ages. The ADA makes
clear that people with disabilities have the same rights as
people without disabilities to live, work, and participate
in their communities.
The principles of integration and inclusion
enumerated in the ADA are at the heart of everything we do
at ACL. They are embedded in our culture and reflected in
our staff, which includes many people with a wide variety
of disabilities (and many more with other personal
connections to the disability community). Every day, our
team is working to realize the vision the ADA established.
ACL’s programs provide critical community
services and supports to people with disabilities and older
adults; work to improve the capability and capacity of
communities to meet the diverse needs of disabled people;
support families and caregivers; fund disability and
rehabilitation research and knowledge translation; and
more. ACL’s programs – and the disability and aging
networks that operate them in communities across the
country – are making it possible for millions of people to
live self-determined lives in their own communities.
However, far too many people who can and
want to live in the community remain in institutions, and
others are at risk of being forced into institutions
despite wanting to stay in their own homes and communities.
That’s why a critical focus for us at ACL is helping
disabled people of all ages move out of nursing homes and
other institutions and avoid entering them in the first place.
In communities across the country, ACL’s
networks are working on multiple fronts to help people with
disabilities exercise their right to live where they want.
Ensuring that residents of facilities are aware of their
options, providing legal assistance, helping people access
the home and community-based services they need to live
independently, and helping to arrange for housing,
furniture, and basic necessities to get started in a home
in the community are just a few of the ways centers
for independent living, state protection and advocacy systems,
aging and disability resource centers, area agencies on
aging, long-term care ombudsman programs, and other
programs funded by ACL are working to help people move to
the community if they want to.
We also are working to help people avoid
entering nursing homes and other institutions in the first
place. ACL’s networks are forming partnerships with
discharge planners at hospitals to connect people with the
services and supports they need to return home following acute
stays, instead of being discharged to a nursing home or
rehab facility, where short-term stays too often become
permanent. Our networks are also actively reaching
out to, and finding solutions for, people who live in the
community but who are at risk of institutionalization due
to unmet needs.
At the federal level, ACL also is forging
partnerships to support diversion and transition efforts.
Over the past decade, ACL has worked closely with the
Centers for Medicare &Medicaid Services (CMS) and the
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
(SAMHSA) to promote transitions from long-term care
facilities to the community. ACL and our networks also
collaborate with HHS’ Office for Civil Rights and the
Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division in their
efforts to enforce the right to community living.
ACL and our networks have played a key role
in implementing the Money Follows the Person, or MFP, program, which has helped more than
107,000 Medicaid beneficiaries move out of institutions and
into homes in the community with the services and supports
they need. MFP has grown since it began in 2008 and now
operates in most states. ACL works with our network of over
20,000 community-based organizations to make sure that
people eligible for MFP know about the program and have the
support they need to participate in it. We’re working with
CMS to strengthen partnerships and collaboration between
state agencies implementing MFP and ACL’s disability and
aging networks.
ACL also is working with partners across HHS
and the federal government to address one of the greatest
barriers to community living – a lack of affordable, accessible
housing. There are only 37 affordable and available homes
for every 100 extremely low-income renter households
nationwide. The situation is even worse for people with
disabilities, because under one percent of the U.S. housing
stock is wheelchair-accessible, and less than five percent
can accommodate individuals with moderate mobility
disabilities. For this reason, one of my first calls when I
arrived at ACL was to the Department of Housing and Urban
Development (HUD) to explore ways we
could partner.
Over the past 18 months, ACL has
strengthened connections between HUD and HHS and with our
networks. Last year, we launched the Housing
and Services Resources Center, a joint HUD-HHS initiative to foster
collaboration and cross-sector partnerships at the federal,
state and local levels in order to streamline access to
services, better leverage resources, and ultimately make
community living possible for more people. Our goals
are to improve the ability of our networks to connect
people transitioning from institutions with housing in the
community, help people experiencing homelessness – which
includes a disproportionate number of people with
disabilities – find stable housing, and connect older
adults and disabled people to the services and supports
they need to live safely and securely in homes in the
community.
A third way ACL is supporting transitions
and diversions is by strengthening the direct care
workforce – the paid professionals who provide the
assistance with daily tasks of life that many people with
disabilities depend on to live independently. There has
been a shortage of direct care workers for many
years. Low pay, lack of benefits, and lack of
opportunities for advancement have led to a turnover rate
of almost 50%, which affects both the quality of and access
to services. The COVID-19 pandemic turned this
long-standing problem into a national crisis. Due to a lack
of direct care workers, nearly three-quarters of community
service providers report that they are declining new client
referrals, and more than half have had to cut services.
This crisis is forcing people into, or causing them to
remain in, institutions and putting at risk the health and
safety of people who live in the community.
ACL is working with partners across all
levels of government to lean into this crisis and find new
ways to respond. Later this year, we will award a grant to establish a national
technical assistance center to serve as a
resource hub to support local, state and federal
governments, and private industry in recruiting, retaining
and training direct care workers.
The examples mentioned above are just a few
of the many ways ACL is working to advance the ADA’s
promise of community living for all people with
disabilities, regardless of level of support needed, type
of disability or age. Although we still have far to go,
over the last 32 years, several generations have grown up,
or grown older, with increasing opportunities to live and
participate in all aspects of community life, thanks in
large part to the ADA. As we celebrate this historic day in
our country’s history, I hope you will join ACL in
protecting, building upon, and advancing the ADA and its
vision of true inclusion and equity for all disabled
people.
To learn more about the Americans with
Disabilities Act and its impact visit:
From the White House: In his proclamation
celebrating the ADA anniversary, President Biden
affirms the Biden-Harris Administration’s
“…commitment to achieving the ADA’s full promise of
advancing disability equity, dignity, access, and
inclusion,” and this White
House fact sheet captures some of the
steps taken just in the last year last year.
ACL’s 2022 ADA Anniversary page: We have compiled information and
resources being shared to celebrate the 32nd anniversary.
On this page, you’ll find links to celebration events,
statements by leaders across federal government, and more.
The
ADA National Network: Funded by ACL’s National Institute on
Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation
Research, the ADA National Network (ADANN) has provided
advocacy, technical assistance education and information to
support and advance of the tenets of the ADA. The ADANN
reach is broad, touching disabled people and their
families, local governments, community-based services
providers, schools, and businesses of all sizes. They’ve
created great resources for celebrating the anniversary and
impact of the ADA.
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