The Center for Disability Rights (CDR) offers a vast array of services and supports for individuals with all types of disabilities, regardless of age or income. CDR has four office locations in Albany, Corning, Geneva and Rochester. Please visit, or contact any of our office locations to access information about the various programs and services we offer people with disabilities and seniors in the community.

CDR continues to have a strong advocacy focus that works for local, state and national systematic change to ensure the rights of people with disabilities.

CDR operates Independent Living Services, providing five core services to individuals with disabilities; CDR can either directly help you or connect you with another organization that can directly help you. CDR’s experienced and knowledgeable staff are strong advocates and teachers and are well aware of resources in the Greater Rochester Community. In addition to the supports available to all individuals with disabilities, CDR operates a service for individuals who are Deaf-blind.

CDR provides many services under New York State’s Home and Community-Based Service waivers. These waivers include services for individuals with developmental disabilities or traumatic brain injuries, or individuals with any type of disability that want to move out of a nursing facility, or avoid going into one in the first place. CDR’s mission is to work for the full integration, independence and civil rights of individuals with disabilities. Through these waiver programs, CDR helps make independence a reality for hundreds of people who want to live in their own home, not an institution.

CDR also provides a Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Service (CDPAS) through New York State’s consumer directed personal assistance program. CDPAS enables the individual with a disability, or their selected surrogate, to manage their own personal care services. CDR’s CDPAS program empowers the individual to control who is coming into their home and providing hands on care services. The individual with a disability is the supervisor with the agency providing supports for success.

Additionally, CDR has a well-established “Pooled Trust” for individuals with disabilities, regardless of age, in order to qualify for the Medicaid services needed without ‘spending down’ into poverty. The Pooled Trust enables an individual to turn some assets or income over to the trust. Then, with the trusts’ authorization, use that income to pay vital expenses, like rent.

You can find additional information about each of the programs and services CDR offers by selecting the different programs in the navigation bar at the top of this page. You will find information regarding eligibility criteria, service geography and program hours. To inquire more about any of the services we offer, please email info@cdrnys.org.