We are an Indigenous family raising children in Minnesota, including children with disabilities. Our experience with the education system has taught us that having rights written into law or policy is not the same as having meaningful access to those rights.

Our experience is personal, but we do not believe the barriers reflected in it should be viewed in isolation.

We are sharing our family's lived experience to help explain how barriers in education can affect Indigenous families, particularly Indigenous children with disabilities. Our family's records and pending complaint processes address the specific facts of what happened to our children. This statement has a different purpose: to describe the broader systems issues our experience has caused us to see.

Our children have experienced barriers involving disability, safety, special education, cultural identity, and access to education. As parents, we have tried to use the processes available to families, including communicating with the school, participating in IEP meetings, requesting records, asking for accommodations and services, working with advocates, filing complaints, and contacting outside agencies.

Our experience has shown us how difficult it can be for a family to obtain timely answers, services, safety, and accountability even while trying to use the processes designed to provide those protections.

This Experience Should Be Understood in a Broader Indigenous Context

It is important that the experiences of Indigenous families not simply be absorbed into a broad category of students of color. Indigenous people experience racial disparities, but there is also a distinct historical relationship between Indigenous communities, government, and education systems that should be recognized.

For generations, education systems caused profound harm to Indigenous children, families, languages, cultures, and communities. That history matters when considering trust, participation, and access within today's institutions.

Our family's experience does not establish what every Indigenous family experiences, and we do not claim that it does. Rather, our experience is one example that should be considered alongside the experiences of other Indigenous families, community testimony, and Minnesota's data concerning Native students.

The important policy question is whether patterns that families describe are being identified, measured, and addressed rather than treated only as isolated disputes.

Being Indigenous and Disabled Can Create Compounding Barriers

For an Indigenous child with a disability, barriers can overlap. A child may depend on adults and systems to accurately recognize, document, accommodate, and protect disability-related needs while the family is also navigating broader cultural and institutional barriers.

Our family has experienced concerns involving disability-related supports, accurate records, safety, and access to education. When one part of a system does not work as intended, families should be able to rely on another part of the system for timely review and accountability.

Our experience has shown us that navigating those different systems can itself become a significant burden.

Special Education and Disability

We have raised serious concerns involving the accuracy and individualization of special education records, implementation of accommodations and services, safety planning, evaluation information, and our ability to meaningfully participate as parents.

We have identified errors and inconsistencies in educational records and have raised concerns about accommodations and supports that we believe were not implemented as required or expected. These matters are addressed more specifically in our records and formal complaint processes.

Parents should not have to become experts in special education law, civil rights procedures, recordkeeping, and administrative complaint systems simply to understand whether their child's needs are being met.

Minnesota should ask which families are most affected when meaningful access to rights depends on a parent's time, financial resources, knowledge, ability to obtain advocacy, and capacity to navigate multiple systems.

Safety and Access to Education

Safety has affected our children's ability to access education.

In one particularly serious situation involving our young son, our formal filings describe our concerns regarding disability-related accommodations, a school-day incident, subsequent medical evaluation, the District's response, and the effect those events had on his ability to return safely to school. Those facts are documented separately in the records and evidence submitted through the appropriate processes.

For purposes of this statement, the larger issue is that a child who cannot safely access the educational environment may not have meaningful access to education even when educational rights and services exist on paper.

Our family's experience demonstrates why safety, disability access, attendance, exclusion from education, and family trust should not always be measured as separate issues.

Meaningful Parent Participation

One of the most difficult parts of our experience has been discovering how hard it can feel to exercise our rights as parents while trying to preserve a workable relationship with the institution educating our children.

We have advocated for safety, accurate records, disability accommodations, implementation of services, meaningful participation in decisions, and access to education.

Those should not be extraordinary requests.

For Indigenous families, meaningful participation must include the ability to raise concerns, disagree, ask questions, bring advocates, request records, and use complaint processes without their advocacy itself becoming the focus.

Our advocacy for our children should be treated as participation, not as a problem that needs to be managed.

Fear of Retaliation Is an Access Barrier

Another barrier that needs to be named directly is fear of retaliation.

Families may hesitate to challenge the people or institutions responsible for their children's education because they fear that speaking up, disagreeing in an IEP meeting, requesting records, bringing an advocate, requesting accommodations, reporting discrimination, or filing a complaint could make their child's situation worse.

Our family has experienced circumstances that caused us to fear negative consequences after advocacy and to carefully consider what might happen to our children or family when we challenged decisions or sought outside review. Specific allegations concerning retaliation are addressed through the appropriate complaint processes. Here, we are describing the lived impact of that fear.

When families have to calculate the possible consequences of speaking before exercising rights that are supposed to be protected, meaningful participation can be undermined.

This issue may also affect what Minnesota's data can see. A family that does not file a complaint is not necessarily a family that experienced no barrier. Some families may become quieter, withdraw from a process, change schools, remove a child, or stop pursuing a request because they do not believe speaking up is safe or effective.

For that reason, Minnesota should not measure access only by counting formal complaints. It should also ask Indigenous families whether they felt safe raising concerns, whether fear of retaliation affected their decisions, and what happened after they advocated.

Fear of retaliation is not merely a side issue. It can be an access barrier.

Accountability Can Be a Barrier of Its Own

Our experience did not end when we identified concerns. We then had to determine where to seek help.

Different issues may be directed to different systems depending on whether they involve special education, disability discrimination, implementation, safety, records, or another protection. Families can spend significant time trying to determine which agency has authority to address which issue.

Even where formal review is available, time matters. A later decision cannot automatically restore months of education, services, stability, or childhood that may have been lost while a dispute was unresolved.

Our experience has therefore highlighted an important distinction between having a right and being able to obtain timely, meaningful access to that right.

The Impact Can Extend to the Entire Family

Educational barriers involving a child with a disability can affect the entire family.

Parents may miss work or alter employment to care for a child who is not attending school. Siblings may be affected. Families may spend substantial time communicating with schools, reviewing records, attending meetings, researching processes, contacting advocates, and pursuing complaints.

Our family has experienced significant practical and emotional consequences while trying to address our children's educational needs. The specific nature and extent of those impacts are documented separately where relevant to our pending matters.

For policy purposes, Minnesota should consider these family-level consequences when evaluating whether educational and disability systems are genuinely accessible.

Why Indigenous Families Need to Be Specifically Measured

Minnesota should examine the experiences of Native children with disabilities specifically rather than allowing those experiences to disappear within either a general disability category or a broad racial category.

That examination should include whether Native children with disabilities receive required supports, have accurate and individualized educational records, experience exclusion or loss of instructional time, have meaningful access to safe educational environments, receive culturally responsive services, and have families who are meaningfully included in decision-making.

The state should also examine what happens after an Indigenous family asks for help. Important measures include whether families can realistically access complaint and accountability systems, whether they feel safe using them, how long resolution takes, and whether remedies actually address the barriers that led families to seek help.

Our Story Should Not Be Treated Only as an Individual Dispute

Our family's circumstances are specific to our children, and the factual allegations in our pending matters should be evaluated on their own evidence.

At the same time, policymakers should not stop there.

We ask Minnesota to listen to Indigenous families collectively, examine statewide and local data, consider the historical relationship between Indigenous communities and educational institutions, and examine which families have meaningful access to attorneys, advocates, experts, transportation, time, information, and complaint systems.

Our family's story is one example that can help illuminate questions Minnesota should examine more broadly.

What We Want Minnesota to Understand

We are not sharing our experience to suggest that every educator or every person working within these systems intends to harm Indigenous families. The issue we are asking Minnesota to examine is larger than individual intent.

The issue is what happens when systems do not work as intended and the burden of identifying, documenting, and seeking correction of those failures falls heavily on the family experiencing them.

Minnesota cannot measure success only by whether a law, policy, IEP, complaint process, Indian Education program, civil rights protection, or equity initiative exists.

It must also ask whether Indigenous children and their families can actually access those protections when they need them, participate meaningfully, and raise concerns without fear.

Our family's experience demonstrates why that question needs to be examined directly with Indigenous families.

Native children with disabilities deserve accurate records, implemented accommodations, culturally responsive support, safety, meaningful access to education, meaningful family participation, and effective accountability when systems fail.

Our experience is personal. It should be considered alongside the experiences of other Indigenous families, not treated as proof that every family has experienced the same events.

That is why Indigenous children, Indigenous children with disabilities, and their families should be explicitly visible in Minnesota's goals, data, engagement, implementation, and accountability measures.

If families are not specifically asked about their experiences, including whether they felt safe reporting concerns, important barriers can remain invisible. When barriers remain invisible, they are much harder to correct.

My name is Rev. Katrin Bachmeier. With Disability Voices Advocate. I also serve as tri-chair on the waiver reimagine taskforce.

Minnesota brought Inclusion Consultants with lived experience of disability into the process to help shape this Olmstead Plan. Some of those very consultants went to the media saying they weren’t being heard, we should listen.

We need to hear them.

Olmstead exists for a fundamental reason: to protect disabled people from unnecessary segregation and institutionalization.

And when the federal government recently retreated from its longstanding interpretation of the integration mandate, Minnesota chose to stand behind Olmstead.

Then that commitment must mean something.

We cannot accept the argument that policies threatening community living are “outside” the Olmstead Plan simply because they have been compartmentalized into another state initiative.

The institutionalization risk created by Waiver Reimagine belongs at the center of Minnesota’s Olmstead Plan.

Civil rights do not stop at departmental boundaries.

If a state policy increases the risk of segregation or institutionalization, an Olmstead Plan must identify that risk, measure it, and meaningfully address it.

That includes Waiver Reimagine and the services tens of thousands of Minnesotans depend upon to remain in their communities.

And Minnesota must count segregation honestly.

What do institutional characteristics look like in real life according to DOJ?

Who chooses your staff? Who decides your meals? Who controls your schedule? Who chooses your activities and access to the community?

Yet provider-controlled congregate settings with these characteristics are recorded in MnCHOICES and other state databases as a participant’s “own home.”

A community address does not make a setting integrated.

You cannot end segregation if you code it as integration.

An Olmstead Plan cannot substitute incremental improvements around the edges for confronting the policies that determine whether people remain free in their communities.

Identify segregation. Prevent institutionalization. Protect community living. Measure real choice.

Olmstead is a civil right -not a planning exercise.

Article I. Bill of Rights of Minnesota’s Constitution (October 13, 1857) states as the Object of Government; Government is instituted for the security, benefit, and protection of the people, in whom all political power is inherent, together with the right to alter, modify or reform government whenever required form the public good.

Good government, for who we are as a constitutional society, requires our commitment to our Constitution whether as an elected official a public servant in government and the people of our great State of Minnesota. It also requires the input from “We the People,” in which our freedom as well as our obligation is to always work toward the greater good and common good for all.

Minnesota’s work with advancing it’s Olmstead Plan has a history of good government by requesting the input from Minnesota’s disability communities and then developing plans to address those concerns.

A pause in the approval of this iteration of Minnesota’ s draft Olmstead Plan is warranted to assure that individuals living with disabilities have ample input and that areas of great concern expressed from people with disabilities are integrated into this plan with action to address those concerns.

I urge the Minnesota Olmstead Subcabinet, with reflection upon Minnesota’s Constitution and in service to Minnesota’s disability communities, pause approval of the draft Olmstead plan and develop an actionable way forward to assure that the plan includes the voices and concerns of people with disabilities and the plan addresses those concerns .

To do so elevates the commitment to excellence as public servants for the greater good and common good of all for who we are as a constitutional society.

Good afternoon. My name is Sandra Bond, and I am President of the Minnesota Association of Residential Service Homes, or MARSH.

I am asking the Olmstead Subcabinet to look closely at whether the actions of Minnesota DHS actually align with the principles this Subcabinet is charged with protecting.

Olmstead is supposed to be about choice, integration, person-centered services, and giving people with disabilities the opportunity to live in the community in the setting that best meets their individual needs.

Yet DHS is dismantling Family Residential Services—one of Minnesota's most integrated residential models.

Beginning April 1, DHS removed FRS from its individualized DWRS framework and replaced it with tiered rates based on case mix. DHS itself acknowledges that the new methodology no longer calculates the rate from the person's actual staffing pattern or one-to-one staffing needs. FRS is also no longer eligible for a rate exception when the established rate cannot support those needs.

The result is predictable: providers cannot continue serving some of Minnesota's highest-needs individuals, homes are closing, and people are losing residential choices.

At the same time, providers are facing increasingly restrictive interpretations of who may operate these homes, aggressive revalidation and disenrollment actions, and administrative policies that make this model harder—not easier—to sustain.

That is not expanding community choice. It is eliminating it.

A person with significant disabilities does not have meaningful choice if the state funds only the settings willing or financially able to accept them.

Olmstead cannot simply mean keeping someone out of an institution. It must mean preserving real choices among integrated community settings and funding the assessed supports necessary for the person to succeed there.

I am asking this Subcabinet to investigate whether DHS's policies toward Family Residential Services are consistent with Minnesota's Olmstead obligations—and to act before these community options disappear permanently.

Thank you.

Good morning, members of the Olmstead Subcabinet. My name is Naveh Eldar, CEO of The Arc Minnesota, a statewide nonprofit that promotes and protects the human rights of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Today, I simply want to say thank you. Thank you for choosing to pause, listen, and recognize that the voices of disabled Minnesotans deserve to be heard before moving forward with a plan that will affect their lives.

By postponing the approval of this plan, you affirmed that meaningful community engagement is not an obstacle to good policymaking. It is the foundation of it. The Arc wants to be clear though, delaying the approval of this plan does not mean the work is done. While we appreciate your willingness to take this additional time, we stand ready to partner with you and the broader disability community to create an Olmstead Plan that is more ambitious, more responsive, and more worthy of the people it serves. Our hope is that we can move into this collaborative phase as soon as possible.

Thank you for making the right decision today.

My name is Nikki Huelsman and I am an Inclusion Consultant (IC) with lived experience as a complexly disabled and neurodivergent Indigenous single mother of three disabled children living in the metro for the past 5 years. Prior to this I lived in greater MN for 11 years. My lived experience also includes being a domestic violence survivor, racial violence survivor, and grand daughter of two Indigenous boarding school survivors.

Professionally I am a community-based, neurodiversity-affirming Occupational Therapist with 20 years of experience and advanced practice expertise in geriatric care and complex mental health care delivery. I have worked in settings including acute psychiatric care units, DD direct care settings, skilled nursing facilities, school systems, home health care and outpatient clinics in ND, CA and MN.

I additionally have 24 years of experience working with developmental disabilities. I began working in a direct care capacity at age 18 in Williston, ND and have continued to support DD clients across settings as an OT.

In my current role as a community-based affirming OT, I apply this experience to directly support and advocate for disabled clients (primarily neurodivergent and otherwise complexly disabled) in their homes and communities. I frequently attend disability service meetings, appeals hearings, IEP meetings, due process hearings and various specialist appointments with my clients. I also provide letters of medical necessity, waiver recommendation letters and disability accommodation letters for employment, hospitalizations, etc.

I also frequently co-present at conferences including the annual AUSM conferences, the MN Autism Summit and the annual MOTA (MN OT Association) conference. I recently presented at the national AOTA (American OT Association) convention in Anaheim, CA on the topic "Empowering Advocacy: Occupational Therapy's Role and Influence on FBA's and PBSP to combat ableism in Special Education."

I have experienced the disparities within the currently available disability systems from both personal and professional perspectives, and I would like to address my thoughts on the systems changes needed through each of these lenses and in the context of the public comments shared and additional feedback provided by other ICs.

From a professional perspective, I have witnessed how the currently siloed systems create ever-widening chasms then basically look at the disabled recipients of those services and say, "Well...jump." I have had clients who waited so long for CADI and CDCS waiver services to be initiated that their MNCHOICES assessment expired, forcing them to start the whole convoluted process again. If they do manage to get waiver services in place they are frequently lost for some amount of time due to service agreements not getting to where they need to be in time-or some other issue with internal communications not occurring in a timely manner, if at all. Additionally, specific to waiver services, getting approvals for supplies and services frequently entails navigating multiple professionals and agencies (sometimes even entire "waiver approval committees" as is the case in Carver County). These requests are frequently denied without legally mandated notice and/or explanation. In the event that a request is denied the client can choose to pursue an appeal; however, this extends the waiting time between the request and the need being met by at least six months-often much longer.

Currently there is no timely recourse. In the interim needs compound and trust and cooperation between the disabled recipient and providers deteriorate. This also can lead to retaliatory behavior from providers, which again-there is no timely or honestly in any way meaningfully impactful avenue for recourse. I have supported clients reporting to the Ombudsman, the MAARC line and even reaching out to their state legislators to contact DHS for them as they have been unable to get someone on the phone to address the issue. None of these reports have resulted in any meaningful change.

I appreciated the recognition in the meetings of the issues with transportation and I would also add that driver safety is a major concern. I have assisted clients in reporting safety concerns with disability transportation supports and again-no meaningful response or mechanism to report and track responsiveness in real time (or any time-really). The use of Lyft passes has also become increasingly less accessible and completely inaccessible if the siloed system doesn't manage to get the paperwork where it needs to be in time.

In the four years that I have been working closely with community-based waiver services, I have yet to have a single client who was eligible to receive transitional housing support services actually receive any meaningful form of transitional housing support. This has resulted in homeless clients remaining unhoused and currently housed clients nearly losing or actually losing their housing due to systemic breakdowns.

In the education setting I have supported clients with complex access needs to advocate for their rights to FAPE and meaningful supports in the most accessible setting. I have advocated for clients whose educational rights are actively being violated while awaiting any form of meaningful response from MDE.

Disability crisis services have been especially disheartening. I have assisted clients in navigating available community crisis services and acute mental health hospitalizations as well as the civil commitment process. I have written accommodation letters for disabled clients seeking inpatient mental health/crisis services which were met with pushback and limited accountability. I lost my first and only client in 20 years to this issue nearly two years ago. And I carry the injustice of her wrongful death with me every single day.

From a personal perspective, I have been attempting to access community-based services for over two years now. When I initially requested to be referred to SMRT in May 2024 I had active MA and the DHS representative I requested make the referral stated she would. She did not. I then lost my MA the following November due to a separate systemic error and have been without health insurance ever since. I have received multiple referrals to specialists for conditions that have gone unaddressed for nearly two years now. This has impacted my access to work. I have yet to access full-time work in 2026 and the year is nearly over. I have also experienced being unhoused twice since moving to the metro and am likely going to be unhoused again at the end of October-due to a lease non-renewal directly related to my disabilities and the extended delays in receiving paid leave funds.

I moved to the metro five years ago seeking additional services and supports for my disabled children and have been repeatedly punished and further marginalized as a result. Had I not moved however, one or both of my older two children may not have made it out of the traumatic educational system they were forced to endure while we were living in greater MN.

In closing, I am reminded of these two quotes (sources unknown): "Power is the currency of the colonizer" and "Power only answers to power", We are attempting to reform and/or improve a system deeply rooted in hierarchal systems of colonial power and we know that these systems will not respond unless greater transformational power is exerted.

I have attached a statement from a family navigating the abysmally ineffective MDE mediation and disability support system. Please read and sit with this mother's words.

Miigwech,

Nikki, MOT, OTR/L, Inclusion Consultant

As a parent and caregiver with over 15 years of experience navigating the disability system in Minnesota, I am deeply concerned with the 2026 draft of the Olmstead Plan. While it is a positive step that we have officially recognized the current system doesn't work, yet this plan offers zero transformation. The investment of spending months on community feedback and meetings should not end up with a 140-page draft that protects the status quo. We need to stop wasting time and money on a continuation of the same old playbook. It’s time for real change, not more paperwork. True transformation is entirely attainable and closer than we think, provided we align our priorities with independence as our north star.

Dear Olmstead Sub-Cabinet and Implementation Office,

The Minnesota Council on Disability writes to formally share our concerns with the latest draft of the Minnesota Olmstead Plan. While we were pleased to see the utilization of inclusion consultants and purposeful outreach to the disability community for feedback, we are disheartened by the minimal reflection of community input and experience in the final document.

Minnesota has historically been a leader in disability rights and community integration. Our state has developed a wide breadth of expertise in supporting our community in a meaningful and innovative manner. Unfortunately, the draft of the Olmstead Plan does not reflect that reputation or history. It devalues historical investments into community inclusion and minimizes the integration mandate of the Olmstead decision.

The Olmstead Plan is not a planning exercise. It represents our state’s commitment to safeguarding the rights of people with disabilities to live, work, and play where they choose. A plan that acknowledges the barriers to housing, integration, and independence but does not establish ambitious and enforceable commitments to remove them, will not lead to meaningful improvements to the system.

Our most pressing concerns center on the following:

• Ambiguous and Low Metrics:The proposed goals—including crisis services, education, competitive employment, accessible housing, safety, and transportation— are an acceptance of the status quo. Establishing incremental 1% to 2% improvements over a five-year period will not lead to transformational change or increase systemic inclusion. We are concerned this will result in lower quality community services and a continued dependence on the costliest disability services.

• Failure in Deinstitutionalization:The proposed plan fails to outline measurable timelines for moving individuals out of restrictive segregated environments and into the most integrated settings. The lack of priority given to this issue does not meet the promise of Olmstead and puts Minnesota in a position to continue paying for more costly, institutionalized support. Home and community-based services bring substantial benefits to both individuals served and the state’s budget, and should be integral to a plan that would meaningfully advance deinstitutionalization

• Systemic Vulnerability Amid Federal Shifts: Given recent federal developments— including the Department of Justice's significantly narrower reading and reduced enforcement of the federal Olmstead integration mandate —Minnesota must have a committed, robust state plan. If federal protections are weakening, our state needs to be willing to step forward and leverage all our tools to protect the rights of the disability community throughout our state.

We ask that the Olmstead Sub-Cabinet pause the adoption of the Olmstead Plan. Below are our formal recommendations:

• Delay the vote to approve the current plan as it is written, which is scheduled for the Subcabinet meeting on September 15, 2026.

• Establish a collaborative approach by creating a workgroup consisting of state partners and community subject matter experts to review comments and feedback to ensure the State’s goals combine incremental and transformational stretch goals that reflect the input and feedback already provided to the draft Plan.

• The State of Minnesota makes a formal commitment to strengthening and investing in the services, supports, housing, employment, transportation and other resources necessary to fully enact the integration mandate.

Minnesota has an opportunity to build on its legacy of advancing disability inclusion, starting with a plan that pushes our government to do better in supporting and valuing people with disabilities. Our hope is to continue working with state leadership to ensure that our Olmstead Plan is something we can all be proud of.

Signed: David Dively, executive director; Jillian Nelson, legislative affairs director; and Axel Kylander, government relations lead.

Today I am writing as one of the many people living my disabled future in Minnesota who expects better than the Olmstead Plan as written. We are extending an offer to write a better plan—one where access is love.

The summary of feedback on the current Olmstead Plan, and the draft Olmstead Plan itself, prioritizes everyone else's voice and needs over us disabled people.

It extends the ongoing and continued equation of parents, providers, and family in Minnesota statute as representatives for us, in place of us, thereby erasing our legitimacy.

Only criminals subject to incarceration and unemancipated minors are similarly denied agency in Minnesota laws and public policy.

This is a self-evident truth, shown by:

• The structure of the website, where our feedback was placed last.^1
• The sanitization of comments from disabled people in the reports.
• The prioritization of organizations, parents, and everyone other than our voices as the experts on what we need.
• Most glaringly, they were only able to collect feedback from disabled people 34.4% of the time.

The disability community didn't wait for you to cut the curbs for us. We had to teach you how to do it by doing it ourselves.

Which brings us to what we are going to do about it:

• Democratizing the data: Linked is the data request on MuckRock ^2 for the unsanitized comments and all of the messaging, directions, and communications as to why they were sanitized.
• Building a Disability Data Lab: We are crowdfunding other data requests helping us move towards the vision of a disability-led and run disability data lab in MN. This is where those of us who have already reached our disabled futures can work with allies ^3, researchers, journalists, policymakers, and government officials so we all understand the disabled future we share.
• Categorizing the feedback: We are going to categorize all of these like we would error reports—by role, types, and impact.
• Rewriting the plan together: Then we are going to invite the disabled people of the State of Minnesota to rewrite the Olmstead Plan together, so we cover all the edge cases for one another. Writing from the margins, by the margins, to the margins. (Skeptical? Open-source software and Wikipedia often work similarly, and if you've ever written smash fiction with hundreds of other people, it's an amazing experience).

Good morning. My name is Dawn Rankin. My husband and I have a 30-year-old son who has an intellectual disability.

I first began hearing about the Olmstead Plan, a court-ordered mandate for Minnesota to increase community integration for people with disabilities, in 2016. This was to include housing and employment opportunities. Per the Olmstead Plan Vision Statement: “People with disabilities are living, learning, working, and enjoying life in the most integrated setting.” (Putting the Promise of Olmstead into Practice: Minnesota’s Olmstead Plan, mn.gov, April 2022)

In the 2016-2017 school year, our son spent his last year of his transition program with Project Search and worked at the State Capital as an unpaid intern. He worked in both the mailroom and with the grounds crew. There was never any concern about his willingness to learn or do the job or his ability to get along with others so we were hoping that the internship would lead to a job after graduation. It did not and he was told that he could apply as positions became available. Since graduating, our son has applied for a mailroom position twice, a grounds crew position twice, and a customer service position twice. Each job description stated that the position was Connect 700 Certificate eligible, which he obtained in 2017. Since he worked in the mailroom and on the grounds crew at the State Capital as an intern, we expected that he might at least get called for an interview when he applied for those same positions. This was not the case. If Minnesota really stands behind The Olmstead Plan, I expect the State of Minnesota to lead by example in its hiring process.

Another aspect of the Olmstead Plan is integrated housing. When my husband and I started thinking about having our son move out of our home, we were told that the state was not opening any more group homes, so we started looking at options in the community with supported services. For the past 5 years, our son has lived in an apartment with roommates and has received services from staff who help the guys with everyday tasks so that they can live in the community. This has been working well to date, but we have heard that the regulations for these types of services are more becoming more restrictive. One of the goals listed in the Putting the Promise of Olmstead into Practice: Minnesota’s Olmstead Plan (mn.gov, April 2022) is to move more people from segregated settings to more integrated settings. If that is a goal, then the state should not be making it harder for providers to provide services to those who need them.

According to ARC Minnesota, “Goals for housing, employment, education, transportation, crisis services, safety, and other critical areas call for improvements of only 1% to 2% over five years.” If the State of Minnesota truly stands behind this plan, then it needs to realize that this is not adequate to allow those who the plan is supposed to benefit to remain in the community.

Thank you.

My name is Shelly Rohe, and I am a disabled Minnesotan.

The new Olmstead Plan reminds me of serving a meal that isn't fully cooked.

Minnesota has gathered many of the right ingredients. Disabled people gave input. Important issues were identified. Goals were created.

But the meal isn't ready to serve.

Some goals aren't ambitious enough. Some measure data instead of meaningful change. And the plan doesn't provide enough accountability when goals aren't met.

Most importantly, an Olmstead Plan doesn’t go far enough. It should not ask, "What can Minnesota reasonably accomplish?"

It should ask, "What prevents disabled Minnesotans from having real choice, control, opportunity, and belonging—and what will Minnesota do about it?"

We don't need another beautiful plan sitting on the table.

We need measurable goals, clear deadlines, accountability, and disabled people helping decide whether those goals are actually working.

Minnesota has gathered the ingredients.

The table is set.

But this meal isn't fully cooked.

Please don't serve it until it is.

Thank you!

Olmstead Subcommittee,

First, I'd like to thank you for your service. We are fortunate to have those committed to bettering the lives of those with disabilities.

As a parent of a young adult with IDD, I am personally vested in your work. I am a firm believer in setting a aspirational, yet achievable goals, and a series of goals. In my work experience we set three levels of annual goals.

Those we could make

• 20% of the time. These are aspirational, an honestly when presented right, and incentivized right. VERY Achievable.
• 50% of the time. This is a mind set of continuous improvement. Every month, incremental change.
• 80% of the time - If we can't make these - we need to investigate why.

As I review your goals for the next 3-5 years, it does not appear as if there is urgency in anything, and goals are not aspirational but rather set as a minimum to get by. I ask you to reconsider these.

For example, I'm curious about how you set the Housing Goal 1A: Universal design. As I read it, the goals through 2031 are to add LESS housing annually than over the past 4 years. Housing is already very challenging; t I do not believe slowing down the growth, is in the best interest of the community and your overarching mission.

I ask you to go back, and reconsider the housing goal, and others where you are looking for a mere 1%-2% improvement in a multi-year effort. I believe these individuals deserve better.

Thank you for your thoughtful consideration.

Brenda

Members of the Olmstead Subcabinet,

Thank you for the opportunity to provide public comment.

My name is Sumukha Terakanambi, and I am speaking here today as a disability advocate.

I wanted to start off by expressing my deep disappointment with the current Olmstead Plan. Back in March, I along with other members of the Governor’s Council on Developmental Disabilities had the opportunity to provide feedback on the draft Olmstead goals. We noted several concerns including that many of the goals were too incremental and conservative to create meaningful systems change. These comments were put together into a letter that was submitted as public comment.

It is incredibly frustrating to see that the final draft has undergone very minimal revisions even after all the concerns that have been raised by the disability community.

The disability community is not asking for a whole lot. The current draft as written by the Subcabinet is woefully inadequate. We simply want a plan that sets out a more ambitious vision for our state so we can live up to the promise of Olmstead. We want state leaders to show the same commitment to advancing disability inclusion as they do to other meaningful initiatives in our state.

In the last year in a half, we have seen what happens when people with disabilities are not centered in decisions that impact them. A strong Olmstead Plan can ensure that these kinds of oversights do not keep happening and that government systems can respond to the needs of all people.

I urge the Subcabinet to delay approval of the Olmstead Plan and work with the disability community to craft a more effective plan.

Our state can and must do better.

Thank You.

Dear Members of the Olmstead Subcabinet:

My name is Lauren Thompson. I’m a disabled disability rights advocate. I have high needs and rely on state disability services to survive every day. I know the potential impact that the Olmstead Implementation (OI) Plan will have on the community, and I will feel those impacts personally. It is with those things in mind that I implore you to NOT approve the Olmstead Plan proposal as it is written now.

Minnesota is not yet in full Olmstead Plan compliance. I will speak specifically about direct support services. There is a persistent lack of inclusion and increasing failure to thrive for those who are not fully integrated in the community—in care services, housing, or both—as an increasing number of people are forced out of independent living services due to the devaluation of the Olmstead promise. The industry-wide shortage of workers has led to compromises in disability care, if not total sacrifices, for the sake of momentary survival.

The current proposal contains goals that are passive or incremental, with vague measures of accountability. While I do believe that these goals were written in good faith on behalf of the community, I also believe that they demonstrate a disregard for the crisis disabled people face, without promoting significant progress or strong enforcement of integration. I fear that the proposal inadvertently undermines the OIO’s own authority to uphold this existing law.

Please do not approve the Olmstead Plan proposal but rather take the opportunity to examine how these goals uphold the promise of Olmstead in action. These may not be the messages you intend to send, but they are not the messages the community is receiving. Please regroup, reevaluate the proposal, and engage more meaningfully with the community so that the final plan reflects both the promise of Olmstead and the people it is meant to serve.

Sincerely,

Lauren Thompson

Proposed Revisions to Olmstead Transit and Transportation Goals

These revisions center people with disabilities as professionals, parents, caregivers, students, leaders, workers, and community members with complex lives. Transportation should support choice, self-determination, interdependence, and full participation in community life.

Goal 1: Reliable, Accessible, and Accountable Transportation

People with disabilities will have access to reliable, safe, accessible, and timely transportation with enough drivers, vehicles, service hours, and available rides to support the full complexity of their lives.

Reliability means more than a vehicle arriving on time. It means:

· Having enough drivers, accessible vehicles, and rides available at the times people need and want to travel.

· Creating equitable and comparable rules across transportation modes so people with disabilities are not subjected to unnecessary restrictions or burdens.

· Holding the Metropolitan Council and transportation providers accountable for missed rides, late rides, driver shortages, inaccessible vehicles, excessively long trips, cancellations, and other barriers.

• Creating a paid Secret Rider Program led by people with disabilities to evaluate accessibility, reliability, customer service, safety, communication, scheduling, and the real experience of using the transportation system.

· Centering people with disabilities in evaluating transportation performance and developing solutions when systems are not working.

Measure reliability by whether people with disabilities can depend on transportation to meet their professional, family, personal, and community responsibilities—not simply whether the transportation system meets its own performance standards.

Goal 2: Full Access to Transportation Choice

People with disabilities will have the transportation choices, training, and funding needed to live full professional, personal, family, and community lives.

People should have equitable access to all modes of transportation , including fixed-route buses and trains, paratransit, microtransit, accessible taxis and cabs, Uber, Lyft, and other community transportation options.

People with disabilities should have access to:

• Voluntary, individualized training to learn how to use multiple transportation modes.
• Flexible use of eligible waiver and other public transportation funding to pay for subsidized and eligible transportation options.
• Multiple transportation choices so a person is not dependent on one system, provider, or mode.

Measures of Success

Instead of primarily asking whether more people with disabilities are using fixed-route transit, Minnesota should ask:

• How many places did the participant get to go today?
• Does the participant know how to use multiple modes of transportation?
• Does the participant have more than one transportation option available?
• Was the participant able to get where they wanted to go when they wanted to go?
• Did transportation support the person’s professional, personal, family, and community responsibilities?
• Was the participant able to choose the transportation option that worked best for them?

The measure of transportation success should be the mobility, choice, opportunity, and community participation of people with disabilities—not simply the number or type of rides provided.

Nikki VillavicencioI She/her/sha, Disability Culture and Leadership Specialist

Good morning. My name is Jennifer Walton, and I’m the Executive Director of Advocating Change Together, a disability-led organization supporting self-advocates across Minnesota.

ACT has been a partner throughout the development of this plan. But I am deeply concerned that the self-advocates we represent—especially people with intellectual and developmental disabilities—are being left behind in the final product.

The heart of Olmstead is the right to live, work, and receive services in the most integrated setting appropriate to each person.

We know people with I/DD living in group homes who want to get out. We know people who want real jobs, real choices, and real control over their own lives.

Yet self-advocacy, person-centered and person-directed services, and clear movement away from segregated settings are not strong enough in this plan.

And the employment goals are far too low. If only 45 out of 100 people measured are expected to have competitive integrated employment by 2031, what are we saying to the other 55?

Your public comment process identified concerns about weak goals, missing issues, implementation, and accountability.

We agree.

The plan defines co-creation as disabled people leading, shaping, and making decisions alongside agencies and leaders.

So please—show us that those words mean something.

Delay this vote.

Truly center the voices of self-advocates and those most impacted. Strengthen the plan. Make integration, choice, self-direction and accountability unmistakable.

Then vote.

Nothing about us without us.

Thank you.

My name is Kathy Ware. I am a Registered Nurse, mother, and legal guardian of my son, Kylen Ware. Kylen is 32 years old and has profound disabilities. Through sacrifice and hard work, he has always lived an integrated, Olmstead-compliant life in his own home.

Murphy v. Harpstead was settled in 2023. Yet in Minnesota in 2026, too many people similarly situated to Kylen are still forced into institutional, congregate-care settings.

We call them CRS, CL, ICS, and MSOCS “homes.” But calling a facility a home does not make it integrated.

People say, “I don’t want to move,” and are told by case managers, “Your needs can only be met in a residential group home.”

We just don’t say the word “institution” out loud.

And when home-care staffing is unavailable, people are pushed into those institutional placements — at enormous human and taxpayer cost.

I have 32 years of experience navigating segregated settings. When I read this Plan, I see my son and his peers being left out. It fails to confront the very segregation Olmstead was intended to address.

And this Plan spends 27 pages discussing state agencies developing goals instead of establishing them.

We cannot wait five years for a state agency to write a goal.

Minnesotans with disabilities need accurate statistics, measurable goals, deadlines, enforcement, public accountability, and consequences.

An Olmstead Plan must have teeth.

Kylen and his peers deserve the right to choose their homes, their caregivers, their communities, and their lives.

Not five years from now. Now.