The Center for Disability Rights is deeply disappointed in Governor Kathy Hochul for advancing an SEIU proposal to defund and devastate the Disability-led organizations that created the program, leaving some Disabled people without services and forcing them into institutions.

Although Independent Living Centers – the only network of Disability-led non-profit organizations in the state – were successful in securing budget language that would maintain their role as full fiscal intermediaries and give Disabled individuals a choice of fiscal intermediary, post-budget statutory changes eliminated that safe harbor language.

“We issued a policy paper thanking the Governor and Legislature for holding us harmless in this process, maintaining some level of choice of fiscal intermediaries, and ensuring our Disability-led organizations will continue as full fiscal intermediaries for the program we created,” said Bruce Darling, President and CEO of the Center for Disability Rights who led the Albany protests that secured the budget language. “Our paper was then used as a blueprint to eradicate us from the system. In a word, ILCs and the Disabled people who secured this budget language were betrayed,” said Darling.

Despite the outcry from the Disability community and letters of opposition from numerous elected official at all levels of government and across parties Governor Hochul is holding firm in her decision to advance the SEIU plan which denies Disabled people choice in their services and – without even basic oversight – hands a multi-billion-dollar program over to a single for-profit agency headquartered outside of New York State. Instead of preserving services, the Hochul/SEIU plan destabilizes the personal assistance services used by New Yorkers with disabilities will leave hundreds of New Yorkers – including Disabled New Yorkers – jobless. This attack on a service system created by a marginalized community to meet the needs of that community is unprecedented.

Advocates compare the development of this program to the services established by the LGBTQ+ community in response to the AIDS crisis. In the 1980s, while the government was failing to address the impact of AIDS and HIV, activists took matters into their own hands and established services to ensure people with AIDS were able to get services and supports they needed. In the same way, Disabled people, desperate to have some control over their own lives and to stay out of institutions, developed the Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program.

“For over 25 years, local, disability-led organizations have run these programs with integrity, providing consumers the support they need to stay in the community and out of institutions. Instead of profiting off the system, we used these services to get people out of institutions. That is being wiped away by the Governor’s attack,” said Tammy Papperman, Vice President for Consumer Directed Services. “This is like the state deciding to defund Planned Parenthood and outsource women’s reproductive care to an out-of-state corporation run by entirely men and motivated by making a profit. The fact that Governor Hochul doesn’t see the similarities demonstrates her ableism.”

CDR appreciates the legislators who are taking action in various ways to address this travesty , such as Senator Gustavo Rivera, who has introduced legislation S. 9901 that would establish licensure as an alternative to a statewide fiscal intermediary. Statewide, legislators are also calling on Governor Hochul to implement common-sense reforms instead of devastating this service system and eliminating a Disabled person’s choice of fiscal intermediary.

Assemblyman Josh Jensen (R,C-Greece) said, “I’m incredibly disappointed that the collective warnings of federal, state and local representatives, and most importantly community stakeholders, continue to be disregarded. The “reform” of CDPAP to a confusing and unaccountable solitary Statewide Fiscal Intermediary could potentially interrupt access to the most basic care needs for the New Yorkers that rely on this critically important program. I will continue to work with my colleagues in government and community members from across New York State to ensure that CDPAP is administered efficiently and effectively, and continue my advocacy for common sense solutions to protect access to this care, and for satisfactory oversight of any bid processes.”

Senator John W. Mannion said, “The purpose of the CDPAP program is to allow people to receive services at home and not in expensive residential facilities. I am fighting the proposed change to a single fiscal intermediary because these are positions of trust that should be community-based. I stand with the Center for Disability Rights in seeking solutions that put people first and preserve quality care and local jobs – not outsource them to a single out-of-state company.”