There are millions of disabled people in the country struggling. The fears are real, felt in social media posts, and in the quiet moments when someone is too tired to pretend everything’s fine. It’s a heaviness in the air, a slow unraveling that disabled people can sense immediately. It’s not loud or dramatic. It is the familiar erosion of support systems, the erosion of rights, and the weakening of the promises that once seemed solid.
What makes it harder is how subtle it is. Progress doesn’t disappear overnight. It thins out. It slips through cracks. It becomes something you have to fight for all over again. Disabled people spent years pushing for change, and now it feels like the ground beneath us is unsteady. Rights that people before us fought for feel less certain. The promises that were meant to empower us are losing their strength, leaving many of us feeling vulnerable in ways that are hard to put into words.
The Olmstead decision was supposed to change everything. It helped guarantee that disabled people have the right to live in our communities instead of being forced into institutions. For a while, it felt like real progress was being made. But rights only matter when someone is willing to enforce them. When the federal government refuses to do that, the consequences show up quickly in our daily lives.
I felt that shift this spring when MassHealth suddenly took away my nighttime personal care assistant hours without warning. One day I had the support I needed to live safely, and the next day it was gone. What followed was months of paperwork, appeals, phone calls, and explaining again and again why overnight care isn’t optional for me. It was exhausting and dehumanizing.
Losing essential support changes how a disabled person sleeps, works, and lives in their own home. It forces you to justify your needs to people who decide whether you get to stay there.
Minnesota shows how quickly bureaucratic decisions ripple outward. Mao Yang, a disabled woman with cerebral palsy, was finally taking steps toward independence. She had started working with a Housing Stabilization Services provider to find her own apartment. Then the state abruptly ended the service amid fraud allegations, and everything she’d been working toward came to a halt.
Disability rights are worth fighting for, and the fight will go on. It continues because we understand what it’s like to fall down and what it’s like to get up. It continues because disabled people deserve a future that is not constantly out of reach, and a life that is safe and dignified. We continue to fight for our rights because we must.
Sources:
Lynch, Sarah N. “States Aren’t Required to Provide Community-Based Care for People with Disabilities, New DOJ Opinion Claims.” CBS News, 18 June 2026, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/doj-disability-opinion-community-care/.
Van Berkel, Jessie. “Are Disability Services in Minnesota Backsliding? Advocates Fear Being ‘Pawns in Political Games.’” Star Tribune, 26 July 2026, https://www.startribune.com/mn-disability-rights-backslide/601846880/.