The Olmstead Decision

The US Supreme Court handed down the Olmstead Decision in 1999, in response to a case filed against Commissioner Olmstead of the Georgia Department of Human Resources. This important civil rights ruling is having a profound, and positive, effect on the lives of people with disabilities and people who are aging throughout the U.S.  -- including people in Iowa.

Does the ADA -- the Americans with Disabilities Act -- require states to provide treatment in the community for people with disabilities?

Discrimination on the basis of disability is illegal. It can occur when people with disabilities:

• Can’t get services unless they live in an institution
• Aren't offered real choices by a state's disability services
• Don't have access to services provided in the most integrated setting that will meet their needs

Community placement must be an option when:

• Treatment professionals determine community placement is appropriate
• The person wants to leave the institution, or is not opposed to leaving
• The placement can be accommodated, considering the resources of the state and the needs of other people with disabilities

• Cost
• All available resources
• How the needs of all people with disabilities will be met

• Allow a state to keep institutions at full capacity by denying people community placements
• Require a state to completely redesign its service system
• Mandate that a state close or down-size institutions
• Call for a state to invest unlimited resources to make community living options available

For IOWANS WITH DISABILITIES, Olmstead does NOT:

• Require them to move from institutions to community settings:
  • If they don’t want to
  • Before services and supports are in place