1. United States
2. Minn.
3. Letter

The Administration of Community Living (ACL) supports the Home- and Community-Based Services (HCBS) Settings Rule, which helps people with disabilities live in our communities, get the kinds of services we need, and makes sure places that say they provide HCBS actually provide HCBS. They also support Centers for Independent Living and State Councils on Developmental Disabilities, both of which provide vital services to many disabled people. Gutting ACL makes no sense. It was made to improve efficiency. ACL leads coordination across the government to support caregivers and provide services at home. Spreading out its responsibilities and firing staff will make services for older adults and disabled people cost more and be less accessible. The services people do receive are already inadequate with years-long waiting lists for HCBS waivers and many people forced into institutional settings because of lack of funding for HCBS. Cuts to Medicaid, as have been proposed by this Congress, drastically impact home and community services specifically as many HCBS services are considered optional under Medicaid. Despite the Olmstead decision confirming that people with disabilities have a right to live in our communities, many programs and services that support community living are not required by federal law. Because of this, cuts to Medicaid will result in heavy cuts to community living and related services. On top of these proposed cuts, the administration is now breaking up ACL, which supports states and self advocates in accessing services in their communities. It is clear that this administration does not care about our community and does not care whether we die or are forced into institutions by inadequate HCBS. This is no surprise coming from a president who allegedly said, in reference to his own disabled family member, that people like us “should just die,” from a Secretary of HHS who has proposed institutionalizing disabled people, and specifically Black people with disabilities, in “wellness farms” and from a unofficial extra governmental advisor offered unprecedented power in this administration who publicly supports eugenics and performed what many people recognized as a Nazi salute at Trump’s inauguration.  In addition, when the administration announced that it would try to close the Department of Education and fired more than 1,300 of people responsible for running Education programs, the administration said that it would be moving programs that serve people with disabilities to HHS. But people in HHS aren’t the experts in helping people with disabilities in school or at work, and this reorganization doesn’t even mention a place for HHS to do this work. In these cuts, the department that enforces civil rights laws like IDEA which ensure children with disabilities have access to education was specifically targeted.