31 years ago, President George Herbert Walker Bush signed the ADA into law with the words, “ Let the shameful wall of exclusion finally come tumbling down.” While there have certainly been advances during the past 31 years, and a reduction in disability discrimination, during the past year and a half we have painfully witnessed the enormous and preventable cost of the continued exclusion of disabled people from the general fabric of society.
For 31 years ADAPT has fought to undo the institutional bias in Medicaid that traps disabled people of all ages in nursing homes and other institutions, excluded from their communities.
For 31 years ADAPT has fought to make Home and Community Based Services (HCBS) the norm for disabled people of all ages so they can live in their own homes and communities while receiving the services and supports they need.
If Congress had listened to ADAPT over the past 31 years, the thousands and thousands of COVID deaths that occurred in the nation’s nursing homes in the past 18 months could have been prevented. If Congress had listened to ADAPT over the past 31 years, the Money Follows the Person Program that assists people to leave nursing homes and return to their communities would have been made permanent. If Congress had listened to ADAPT over the past 31 years, the nation’s workforce providing HCBS would be receiving the livable wages and benefits they deserve for the hard and essential work they do. Passing the ADA was a tremendous victory, filled with the promise of liberty and equity. Implementing and enforcing it has proven to be another fight at best, and an exercise in futility at worst.
The yearly anniversary of the ADA will only be truly and authentically celebrated when it’s long overdue promises become our everyday reality for all.