The New Year Brings New HCBS Settings Rules … but NOT immediate changes in services! As states and stakeholders across the country assess their Medicaid-funded home and community-based settings for compliance with the 2014 regulations, many people with disabilities and their families have asked whether their current services will change immediately, due to the regulation. In other words, they want to know: If a state determines that a current HCB setting is not compliant with the new regulation, does it have to stop providing services in that setting immediately?

December 1 is the 26th annual World AIDS Day. While raising awareness of the prevalence of AIDS and HIV, we also need to raise awareness about who is at risk. Unsafe sex is the most common way people contract HIV worldwide. Unfortunately, many people mistakenly assume that older Americans and individuals with a disability are not sexually active and therefore not at risk for HIV infection.

By Vicki Gottlich, Director of the Center for Policy and Evaluation, Administration for Community Living

Protecting the Voting Rights of People with Disabilities In this blog, we feature a conversation about voting rights for people with disabilities between Commissioner Aaron Bishop, of the Administration on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AIDD), and Melvenia Wright, a program specialist with the Administration for Community Living (ACL) who manages grants related to the Help American Vote Act (HAVA).

By Bonnie Brandl, Director of the National Clearinghouse for Abuse in Later Life This week, the National Adult Protective Services Association (NAPSA) hosted their annual conference, which brought together hundreds of APS workers and other professionals from a variety of disciplines to address the abuse of older adults and persons with disabilities. This year’s theme, Stronger Together: Celebrating 25 Years Protecting America’s Vulnerable Adults, provides an important opportunity to shed light on why we need a comprehensive community response to elder abuse.

As Sharon Lewis, deputy administrator for the Administration for Community Living (ACL), noted in her Disability Employment Awareness Month blog post earlier this month, working is about more than earning a paycheck. It gives purpose and structure to our lives. In the late 1990s, the Medicaid Buy-In program launched historic changes for workers with disabilities. For individuals suppressing their income to gain or maintain access to critical community-based supports, it was life changing.

By Christopher Coleman, CEO and Founder of the Unconfined Life Institute

Expect. Employ. Empower. Everyone deserves the opportunity to find and perform meaningful work. This includes older adults and people with even the most significant disabilities.

By Larissa Crossen, Administration for Community Living Program Specialist

Chronic health conditions are, unfortunately, often a part of the aging process. Ninety-two percent of people over age 65 live with at least one chronic health condition, such as diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, or cancer. Seventy-seven percent live with two or more such conditions. Chronic health conditions can create challenges that affect every aspect of a person’s life. However, learning to manage those conditions enables people to stay healthy, active, and engaged in their communities.