Judges’ order gives NC 10 years to provide more at-home disability services

By Taylor Knopf and Rose Hoban

Disability Rights North Carolina celebrates Judge Allen Baddour’s ruling that will help more people with disabilities live at home, but state officials say it may take longer to fulfill his order.

In a sweeping judgment handed down last week, a Superior Court judge ruled that the state of North Carolina needs to provide services to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in the home settings that they choose.

In his order, Judge Allen Baddour noted that North Carolina is “over-reliant on institutions” for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

This has been a problem for a very long time.

For years, families of people with disabilities have filed lawsuits and complained that North Carolina has dragged its feet in providing support services in community settings. There is a state Medicaid program — known as the Innovations Waiver — that allows people with disabilities to receive services at home or in the community setting of their choice. However, an ever-growing waitlist has more than 16,000 people who, under current circumstances, will wait up to a decade or more for a slot to receive services.

Baddour’s ruling gives the state a 10-year timeline for serving all of the potential recipients and eliminating the massive waitlist. That would mean people who currently live in institutions — because they and their families have no other option — would have the choice to live in the community with appropriate services provided by the state.

Disability Rights North Carolina, the group representing the plaintiffs, called this a “historic” ruling that will “end segregation of thousands of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.”

Full Story Here: https://www.northcarolinahealt...=November+14%2C+2022