On June 18th, 2026, the Department of Justice released a memo that affects people with disabilities. The memo, an opinion from the Office of Legal Counsel, argues that states don’t have to provide in-home or community-based care to people with disabilities who need this type of support. However, these services allow many disabled Americans to continue to live, learn, work, and engage with their communities.
This memo affects me personally. It would mean that I can’t live at home with my family, I can’t access the care workers who help me live as independently as I currently do, I can’t work, and life as I know it would change forever. That’s neither fair nor right.
This harmful memo reinforces society’s decade-old attitude towards people with disabilities.
Our government once hid people with disabilities away in institutions instead of allowing them the right to participate in their communities. Many American cities even passed “ugly laws,” which banned people with disabilities from existing in public spaces. Moreover, the last of these laws, Chicago’s “ugly law,” remained in effect until 1974, just over 50 years ago. It’s sickening to think that until relatively recently, society perceived people with disabilities as too “different” to share the same rights as their able-bodied peers, and with this memo, the same message is spreading today.
This memo is a slap in the face to generations of disability rights advocates, like Judy Heumann and Lois Curtis. Many of the disability rights movement’s most prominent advocates fought for the disability community’s rights before any disability rights existed. Now, this opinion from the Office of Legal Counsel could strip away all of those hard-won rights.
Lawmakers seem to forget that, along with death and taxes, disability is a certainty in life.
The disability community is the only minority group that anyone can join at any time, and eventually, everyone will be a member. If you’re lucky enough to live a long life, you will become disabled — no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Then, you’ll likely need a caregiver, and you may need to access in-home care. I’m sure that those who issued this memo would rather engage with the community as their bodies age than stay home because they can’t access the services that they need.
Government officials need to step into the disability community’s shoes now because one day, they’ll experience everything people with disabilities face daily. Start advocating for in-home and community care for us. We deserve to live, work, and access the world just as much as everyone else, and in-home care makes it possible.
Featured Photo by Raj Tuladhar on Unsplash.
