Vermont Care Partners Position Statement On The Olmstead Decision

Protecting The Promise of Olmstead: Vermont’s Commitment to Disability Rights and Community-Based Care

The measure of a community is reflected in how it values every person who calls it home. People with disabilities have the same right as anyone else to dignity, autonomy, individual choice, and full participation in community life. At Vermont Care Partners, we believe protecting those rights strengthens all of Vermont.

The Supreme Court’s decision in Olmstead v. L.C. was a landmark civil rights decision that affirmed what people with disabilities and their advocates had long fought for - that disability should never be a reason someone is separated from their family, their community, or the life they want to live.

For generations, people with disabilities were placed in institutions, excluded from schools and workplaces, and denied the opportunity to fully participate in community life. The Americans with Disabilities Act, its integration mandate, and the Olmstead decision changed that trajectory by recognizing that inclusion, autonomy, and choice are not privileges. They are rights.

For Vermont, Olmstead represents more than a legal decision. It represents a commitment to the kind of state we want to be. For many decades, Vermont’s disability rights movement, policymakers, individuals, families, advocates, and community-based providers have worked toward the same goal: ensuring that people with disabilities can live full, meaningful lives as members of their communities. This progress reflects deeply held Vermont values - values grounded in dignity, inclusion, independence, and the belief that every person belongs.

Vermont’s commitment to these principles also predates Olmstead. In 1996, Vermont enacted the Developmental Disabilities Act, codifying principles of self-determination, individualized support, meaningful choice, community participation, and accessibility. Vermont was already moving toward a system grounded in inclusion, autonomy, and community-based support before the Supreme Court affirmed these principles through Olmstead. That history demonstrates that community-based support is not simply a federal requirement for Vermont; it is part of our own commitment to ensuring that Vermonters with disabilities can live the lives they choose.

That promise is reflected in the home and community-based services that make community living possible. These services are not simply a program or a funding structure. They represent a commitment to how Vermont believes people should be supported. They are what allow people to have choice. They are what allow families to stayconnected. They are what allow people to be neighbors, coworkers, friends, and valued members of their communities. Investing in these services is an investment in people, families, and the strength of our communities.

VCP is deeply concerned by recent actions at the federal level that seek to narrow the interpretation of the integration mandate affirmed through Olmstead and weaken the federal government’s role in protecting disability rights. While an Office of Legal Counsel memorandum does not overturn a Supreme Court decision or change existing law, it raises serious concerns about the future strength of federal enforcement and the potential impact on community-based systems across the country.

While the legal protections established through the Americans with Disabilities Act, the integration mandate, and Olmstead remain in place, any effort to weaken the commitment to community integration and inclusion threatens the progress that people with disabilities, families, and communities have worked for over generations.

The significance of the integration mandate is not simply a legal requirement - it is the foundation that has allowed communities across the country, including Vermont, to move away from institutionalization and exclusion and toward systems that support inclusion, choice, and independence. It recognizes that people with disabilities should not face unnecessary barriers to living, working, and participating in their communities. Community-based services work because they are built around people - their goals, their preferences, their relationships, and their definition of a meaningful life.

But access alone is not enough. Meaningful choice requires that people have meaningful options from which to choose. A system can offer choices on paper while still providing very different levels of opportunity, quality, connection, and independence to different people. True community integration means asking not only whether a person has access to a service, but whether that access provides the same dignity, quality, opportunity, and range of choices available to others in the community. Equity requires more than opening the door; it requires ensuring that the choices on the other side of that door reflect the dignity, opportunity, and belonging that Vermont says every person deserves.

This moment requires Vermont to be clear about who we are and what we value. Vermont has long recognized that people with disabilities are not separate from their communities - they are essential members of them. That commitment requires more than words; it requires sustained investment, a strong workforce, and continued support for the systems that make community living possible.

Vermont’s progress toward inclusion has taken decades of advocacy, partnership, and hard work. That progress must not be taken for granted. Vermont must not move backward.

As Vermont faces increasing pressure on its community-based system, including workforce challenges, growing needs, and limited resources, the answer cannot be a retreat from the principles that have guided this work for decades. The answer is to continue investing in people, services, and the community-based infrastructure that make inclusion, autonomy, and choice possible.

Vermont Care Partners remains committed to standing alongside people with disabilities, self-advocates, families, providers, policymakers, and communities to protect the progress made through decades of disability rights work and the promise affirmed through Olmstead.

The question before us is not simply about policy or funding. It is about the kind of Vermont we choose to build and the values we choose to uphold.

A Vermont where every person belongs.

A Vermont where disability does not limit choice, connection, or autonomy.

A Vermont where every person can build the life they choose.

That is the promise of Olmstead. That is the promise Vermont must continue to uphold.

A Statewide Network Supporting Vermonters to Lead Healthy and Satisfying Lives Community by Community Clara Martin Center · Champlain Community Services · Counseling Service of Addison County · Families First in Southern Vermont · Green Mountain Support Services · Health Care and Rehabilitation Services · Howard Center · Lamoille County Mental Health Services · Lincoln Street Inc.· NFI Vermont Inc. · Northeast Kingdom Human Services · Northwestern Counseling & Support Services · Rutland Mental Health Services/Community Care Network · United Counseling Service of Bennington County · Upper Valley Services · Washington County Mental Health Services www.vermontcarepartners.org