Your Right to Live at Home Did Not Vanish This Summer

If you are raising an autistic child who needs home nursing, or you are an autistic adult who wants to stay in your own apartment with supports — not a nursing home or a locked ward — the news from the Justice Department this summer was scary. A federal memo said the department no longer reads disability law the way it used to on community living.

Here is the part that matters at the kitchen table: the Supreme Court decision that protects community living was not repealed. A memo is not a new law. Your right to fight for home and community services did not vanish.

What actually changed

In 1999, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Olmstead v. L.C. Two women with mental illness and developmental disabilities were ready to leave a Georgia state hospital for community programs, and the state kept them locked in anyway. The Court said unjustified segregation of people with disabilities is discrimination under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act — the part that covers state and local government services.

The Court set a plain three-part test that still sits on ADA.gov’s archive page: public entities must provide community-based services when those services are appropriate, the person does not oppose community-based treatment, and the services can be reasonably accommodated given the public entity’s resources and the needs of others already getting disability services.

On June 18, 2026, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel issued a memo saying neither the ADA nor Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act — the older law that bars disability discrimination by programs that take federal money — “require states to treat mentally disabled patients in the most integrated setting appropriate to their needs.” Disability Scoop reported on August 20 that the department then said it would no longer enforce its long-standing Olmstead guidance. The memo itself admitted the new view “is out of step with the common understanding of that decision within the federal courts.”

That is a real shift in who will show up to investigate whole state systems. It is not Congress wiping Olmstead off the books.

What families are seeing in court

In Florida, the Justice Department had sued over children with complex medical needs living in nursing homes instead of at home with services. An appeals court had upheld an order pushing the state to improve community-based care. Then federal lawyers told that court they want the case sent back and reconsidered. They now oppose protections for children who are at risk of entering institutions — not only children already inside one. Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet K. Dhillon wrote that there is “little reason to keep in place injunctive relief” when the government no longer defends the legal theory behind it.

Separately, the department dropped out of Steward v. Abbot, a Texas case about people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in nursing homes. Jennifer Mathis — now at the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, formerly a deputy in DOJ’s Civil Rights Division — told Scoop she expects the department to try walking away from other Olmstead matters too. Notices tied to settlement cases in Maine and Rhode Island, she said, look “ominous.”

Michelle Uzeta of the Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund put the cost in one line: Olmstead is still the law, and disabled people can still bring cases — but the Justice Department was uniquely positioned to investigate entire state systems. Individual families and small nonprofits cannot match that scale alone.

What did not vanish

The Bazelon Center’s June 18 statement is blunt: a Justice Department memo cannot change the law. Only Congress can. The Center notes that the department itself warns states that act on the memo’s reasoning may be sued — because federal courts have long read Olmstead the other way.

So what still stands this week:

• The 1999 Supreme Court decision and its three-part community-services test.

• The right of autistic people, other disabled people, and their families to file cases when a state unnecessarily institutionalizes someone — or puts them at serious risk of that — when community services are appropriate and wanted.

• State laws, state Olmstead plans, and state attorneys general who keep enforcing community integration even when federal lawyers step back.

What got thinner is the federal government’s willingness to lead those fights. That is an enforcement story. It is not a permission slip for a facility to ignore community options.

No invented institutionalization counts. No invented governor pledges. The locked sources say: the Court decision remains; the department’s posture changed.

What you can do this week

If your household is fighting for home nursing, a waiver slot, or a move out of a facility, keep the ask concrete.

• Write down the services that already work at home — nursing hours, personal care, behavioral support, transportation — and what happens if those hours disappear.

• Ask your state disability rights office or Protection and Advocacy agency whether your state still has an active Olmstead plan and who enforces it now.

• Save every denial letter, waiting-list notice, and “no community placement available” email. Paper trails matter when federal investigators are quieter.

• If a facility is pushing a move “for your own good” that the person does not want, say that out loud and put it in writing. Olmstead’s own test cares whether the person opposes community-based treatment — and whether community services are appropriate.

• Call a disability lawyer or legal aid before you assume the Justice Department’s silence means the claim is gone. Private suits still exist.

You do not have to become a constitutional scholar overnight. You do need one clear sentence for the next care-plan meeting: community living is still protected by a Supreme Court decision, even when the federal lawyers change their tune.

Subscribe to Autism Digest when you want the next civil-rights shift counted in plain language. We will cite the page, not the panic.

Sources

“Justice Department Backs Off Disability Rights Enforcement,” Disability Scoop (Michelle Diament), August 20, 2026. https://www.disabilityscoop.com/2026/08/20/justice-department-backs-off-disability-rights-enforcement/32138/

“Bazelon Center Statement on DOJ Memo Attacking Longstanding Protections for People with Disabilities,” Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, June 18, 2026. https://www.bazelon.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Bazelon-Statement-on-OLC-Memo-6.18.2026.docx.pdf

“About Olmstead,” ADA.gov archive (U.S. Department of Justice), summarizing Olmstead v. L.C., June 22, 1999. https://archive.ada.gov/olmstead/olmstead_about.htm