Part 2: Disability Rights: Housing, healthcare and mobility challenge Vermonters

Thanks to the efforts of the Vermont Coalition of Disability Rights, the Vermont Legislature voted on a House resolution declaring Feb. 11, 2026, Disability Advocacy Day. Families, self-advocates, service providers and legislators gathered at the Vermont Statehouse under a shared call to action: disability policy is every policy.

Disability touches housing, healthcare, education, employment, transportation, and economic stability. Every bill discussed, passed, and implemented — whether about housing, transportation, education, or economic development — impacts not only disabled Vermonters, but all Vermonters. One in four Vermonters is disabled. If you aren't disabled now, if you live long enough, you will be a disabled Vermonter too. Our fight is your fight.

One of the most urgent issues facing disabled Vermonters is housing. Vermont ranks 4th worst in the nation for housing insecurity. The 2025 Vermont homelessness report estimates that at least 4,500 Vermonters — including more than 1,000 children — are experiencing homelessness. Of those individuals, 52% have a disability. But of the available housing, only 0.04 % is ADA accessible.

Disabled Vermonters experience an abundance of barriers to stable housing: lack of accessibility and affordability being the most common. This lack of housing security for disabled people is pushing more and more disabled people away from their communities, and often times out in the streets.

On Disability Advocacy Day, Brenda Siegel of EndHomelessness VT spoke of a Vermont man she works with who has spent years cycling in and out of hospitals — not because he needs long-term medical care, but because he has nowhere stable to live. He is a former Statehouse police officer who was diagnosed with MS. And as his condition progressed, his rentals have become less and less accessible.

When his housing falls apart, his health collapses. When his health collapses, he ends up in the emergency room. After a short stabilization, he is discharged back into the same instability that will bring him back to the emergency in a matter of time. It is a costly, ineffective and deeply inhumane loop where hospitals become holding spaces. Emergency rooms become temporary shelter. Public dollars are spent repeatedly without solving the underlying problem.

This is what happens when independent living exists in principle but not in infrastructure nor investment. This is what happens when housing is disconnected from healthcare. Disabled advocates and activists fought to close institutions here in Vermont. But without stable housing and community-based services, we risk upholding a new kind of segregation, a new kind of erasure from our communities.

Housing is foundational for independent living, but healthcare is the structure that allows it to stand. At Disability Advocacy Day, we heard repeatedly that Vermont's healthcare and long-term services systems are under strain. What disabled Vermonters are navigating is not conjecture. It is not anecdotal. It is lived reality. And each day, quality of life is being diminished.

To understand the erosion of the civil rights of disabled people in Vermont, one needs to understand a cornerstone of the disability rights movement: Home and Community Based Services or HCBS. Most people have never heard the term but if you are disabled, have an aging parent, a disabled loved one, a partner with a chronic illness, etc. you have likely relied on them.

HCBSs are the supports that allow disabled people to live in their own homes and communities rather than in institutions, congregate, isolated or restrictive settings. They include personal care attendants who help someone get dressed in the morning, respite services that give family caregivers a break, case managers who coordinate medical and housing needs, supported employment services, in-home nursing, transportation, and community-based mental health supports and more.

But across Vermont — and across the country — these supports are quietly being eroded and deprioritized. Vermont closed its last large state institution, the Brandon Training School, in 1993. But institutionalization is not defined by architecture. It is defined by segregation, by removing people from community life when community supports could make inclusion possible. Home- and community-based services are the cornerstone of equity for disabled people, and depend on Medicaid funding, workforce stability, and consistent government and public investment.

Beth Davis took to the podium and spoke on behalf of her 43-year-old autistic son Craig. Craig has dreams. He wants a girlfriend, a job and a home of his own. He wants to live near his friends, walk to the library and stop by the local bagel shop. Craig wants a self-determined life in his community. This life has not been available for Craig. Shared living and group home placements did not fit his needs. Sensory overload, unnecessary restrictions, and a lack of meaningful integration made those options untenable. So Craig lives with his aging parents, not by choice, but because Vermont has failed to build the service-supported housing that would allow him to live independently in his community. His story is not unique. Craig is one of a multitude of disabled Vermonters who are waiting for housing that affirms their dignity and self-determination.

As our healthcare system erodes, the lives of disabled Vermonters disproportionately erode. Several advocates spoke about severe workforce shortages in personal care and direct support services. Even when someone qualifies for services, finding staff can take months. In rural parts of the state like ours, it can be almost impossible.

Healthcare access also includes preventative care — something many disabled Vermonters struggle to receive. Transportation barriers, inaccessible medical offices, limited specialist availability and insurance complexities compound quickly. When preventative care is delayed, manageable conditions become emergencies. Emergency room visits turn into hospital stays. Hospital stays can turn into psychiatric holds. And prolonged instability drives premature nursing home placement — even though many of those facilities are also at capacity.

Disabled Vermonters who are neither dangerous nor sick end up removed from their communities, living in institutions by another name.

Without robust investment in Medicaid and home- and community-based services, Vermont risks undoing decades of progress. When healthcare destabilizes, independent living destabilizes. When independent living destabilizes, institutionalization — whether in nursing homes, psychiatric facilities, out-of-state placement or endless hospital loops — quietly becomes the default again.

Mobility is a cornerstone of independent living, self-determination and autonomy. Transportation is one of the most persistent and overlooked barriers facing disabled Vermonters. Housing, healthcare, education, employment: All of it depends on whether a person can get from one place to another.

In rural communities, like much of southern Vermont, public transportation is limited. Services require advance scheduling that do not allow for spontaneity, emergency appointments or flexible employment. Missed rides can mean missed medical care, missed shifts and missed opportunities.

One well-known disability advocate, Rene Pellerin, who has dual sensory loss, spoke of navigating a world designed almost entirely without him in mind. For Pellerin and other DeafBlind Vermonters, transportation barriers are layered: visual information inaccessible, auditory announcements unusable, drivers untrained in communication needs, and little consistency in how assistance is provided. Without Support Service Providers — SSPs — trained professionals who facilitate communication and environmental access — even routine travel can become isolating and unsafe.

Transportation for disabled Vermonters is not simply about moving from point A to point B. It's about access to information, autonomy and basic safety. It's about whether one can independently navigate a doctor's office, a workplace, a public meeting or a grocery store.

When transportation systems are built without accessibility at their core, disabled Vermonters are effectively confined — not by walls, but by logistics. When buses are inaccessible, when routes disappear, when rural infrastructure is underfunded, when SSP programs are unstable or under-resourced, the result is isolation. Without accessible transportation, disabled Vermonters disappear from their communities.

If Vermont and the nation at large continues down this path, my son, your neighbor and thousands of Vermonters, along with millions of Americans, will continue more and more, to live in isolation and segregation.

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Anne Henshaw, a Chester resident and member of the board of the Green Mountain Unified School District, is a 2020 graduate of the Partners in Policymaking program, a member of the National Down Syndrome Advocacy Coalition, a 2015-2020 member of the Council of Parent Advocates and Attorneys, certified in Person-Centered Thinking and Planning, and an former IEP consultant. For more than a decade, she and her family have engaged in legislative advocacy and intersectional activism focused on equity, inclusion, and community belonging.