As the ADA turns 35, groups fighting for disability rights could see
their federal dollars slashed
[July 26, 2025]
By JOHN HANNA and KENYA HUNTER
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Nancy Jensen believes she’d still be living in an
abusive group home if it wasn’t shut down in 2004 with the help of the
Disability Rights Center of Kansas, which for decades has received
federal money to look out for Americans with disabilities.
But the flow of funding under the Trump administration is now in
question, disability rights groups nationwide say, dampening their mood
as Saturday marks the 35th anniversary of the landmark Americans with
Disabilities Act. Federal dollars pay for much of their work, including
helping people who seek government-funded services and lawsuits now
pushing Iowa and Texas toward better community services.
Documents outlining President Donald Trump's budget proposals show they
would zero out funds earmarked for three grants to disability rights
centers and slash funding for a fourth. Congress' first discussion of
them, by the Senate Appropriations Committee, is set for Thursday, but
the centers fear losing more than 60% of their federal dollars.
The threat of cuts comes as the groups expect more demand for help after
Republicans’ tax and budget law complicated Medicaid health coverage
with a new work-reporting requirement.
There’s also the sting of the timing: this year is the 50th anniversary
of another federal law that created the network of state groups to
protect people with disabilities, and Trump's proposals represent the
largest potential cuts in that half-century, advocates said. The groups
are authorized to make unannounced visits to group homes and interview
residents alone.
“You’re going to have lots of people with disabilities lost,” said
Jensen, now president of Colorado’s advisory council for federal funding
of efforts to protect people with mental illnesses. She worries people
with disabilities will have “no backstop” for fighting housing
discrimination or seeking services at school or accommodations at work.
The potential budget savings are a shaving of copper from each federal
tax penny. The groups receive not quite $180 million a year — versus
$1.8 trillion in discretionary spending.
Trump's administration touts flexibility for states
The president's Office of Management and Budget didn't respond to an
email seeking a response to the disability rights groups' criticism. But
in budget documents, the administration argued its proposals would give
states needed flexibility.
The U.S. Department of Education said earmarking funds for disability
rights centers created an unnecessary administrative burden for states.
Trump's top budget adviser, Russell Vought, told senators in a letter
that a review of 2025 spending showed too much went to “niche” groups
outside government.
“We also considered, for each program, whether the governmental service
provided could be provided better by State or local governments (if
provided at all),” Vought wrote.
Disability rights advocates doubt that state protection and advocacy
groups — known as P&As — would see any dollar not specifically earmarked
for them.
They sue states, so the advocates don’t want states deciding whether
their work gets funded. The 1975 federal law setting up P&As declared
them independent of the states, and newer laws reinforced that.
“We do need an independent system that can hold them and other
wrongdoers accountable,” said Rocky Nichols, the Kansas center's
executive director.
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Rocky Nichols, left, executive director of the Disability Rights
Center of Kansas, and Matthew Hull, right, a Kansas resident who has
cerebral palsy, speak at the center in Topeka, Kans., June 18, 2025.
(AP Photo/John Hanna)
 Helping people with disabilities
navigate Medicaid
Nichols' center has helped Matthew Hull for years with getting the
state to cover services, and Hull hopes to find a job. He uses a
wheelchair; a Medicaid-provided nurse helps him run errands.
“I need to be able to do that so I can keep my strength up,” he
said, adding that activity preserves his health.
Medicaid applicants often had a difficult time working through its
rules even before the tax and budget law's recent changes, said Sean
Jackson, Disability Rights Texas’ executive director.
With fewer dollars, he said, “As cases are coming into us, we’re
going to have to take less cases.”
The Texas group receives money from a legal aid foundation and other
sources, but federal funds still are 68% of its dollars. The Kansas
center and Disability Rights Iowa rely entirely on federal funds.
“For the majority it would probably be 85% or higher,” said Marlene
Sallo, executive director of the National Disability Rights Network,
which represents P&As.
The Trump administration's proposals suggest it wants to shut down
P&As, said Steven Schwartz, who founded the Center for Public
Representation, a Massachusetts-based organization that works with
them on lawsuits.
Investigating allegations of abuse and pushing states
Federal funding meant a call in 2009 to Disability Rights Iowa
launched an immediate investigation of a program employing men with
developmental disabilities in a turkey processing plant. Authorities
said they lived in a dangerous, bug-infested bunkhouse and were
financially exploited.
Without the dollars, executive director Catherine Johnson said,
“That’s maybe not something we could have done.”
The Kansas center's private interview in 2004 with one of Jensen's
fellow residents eventually led to long federal prison sentences for
the couple operating the Kaufman House, a home for people with
mental illnesses about 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of Wichita.
And it wasn't until Disability Rights Iowa filed a federal lawsuit
in 2023 that the state agreed to draft a plan to provide community
services for children with severe mental and behavioral needs.
For 15 years, Schwartz's group and Disability Rights Texas have
pursued a federal lawsuit alleging Texas warehouses several thousand
people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in nursing
homes without adequate services. Texas put at least three men in
homes after they'd worked in the Iowa turkey plant.
Last month, a federal judge ordered work to start on a plan to end
the “severe and ongoing” problems. Schwartz said Disability Rights
Texas did interviews and gathered documents crucial to the case.
“There are no better eyes or ears,” he said.
___
Hunter reported from Atlanta.
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