Center For Disability Rights

CDR is a disability led, not-for-profit Corporation. We provide services to people with disabilities and seniors within the framework of an Independent Living Model which promotes independence of people with all types of disabilities, enabling choice in living setting, full access to the community, and control of their life.

CDR works for national, state, and local systemic change to advance the rights of people with disabilities by supporting direct action, coalition building, community organizing, policy analysis, litigation, training for advocates, and community education.

CDR advocates for the full integration, independence, and civil rights of people with disabilities.

ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION

The Center for Disability Rights is a Disability-led social justice organization working to advance the rights of people with disabilities. The organization is committed to ensuring a majority of the board members, management staff, and staff are people with disabilities. This lived experience from within all levels of the organization helps set us apart from others and informs all of the work we do.

CDR began as an all-volunteer advocacy group that in 1989, before the Americans with Disabilities Act, secured a public commitment from the Rochester Transit Authority to put lifts on its buses and a state law that required access to public transit. It remained an all-volunteer advocacy group until 1998 when the organization secured funding for a small handful of staff to provide direct services.

Over nearly 30 years, CDR has consistently grown. In addition to our primary office in Rochester, we now have locations in Corning, Geneva and Albany, while serving people across the state. The organization also supports Disabled advocates in Washington D.C. working to codify our right to live in freedom.

Some of CDR’s accomplishments include:

• Successfully suing the Rochester Genesee Regional Transportation Authority to secure paratransit services that comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
• Securing state legislation creating the Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program, the Nursing Home Transition and Diversion Waiver, the Access to Home Program, and the Olmstead Housing Subsidy.
• Securing federal policy changes that promote community integration, including the Community First Choice Option.
• Developing a model for nursing facility and institutional transition, and training people from over 40 states, as well as Guam and Washington D.C.
• Saving Obamacare and Medicaid in 2017 during the Summer of ADAPT – 36 days of Disability Rights protests that spanned the entire country and transformed the Congressional fight over Medicaid into a fight for Disability Freedom.
• Crafting federal legislative language that would give Disabled individuals a statutory and enforceable civil right to live in freedom.