Approximately 1.5 million adults are under active guardianship or conservatorship, according to Bloomberg Law. An unknown number of these adults are young adults with disabilities, often intellectual and/or developmental disabilities (I/DD). These young adults are often funneled into guardianship by what the National Council on Disability (NCD) in its 2018 report called the “school-to-guardianship pipeline,” a phenomenon where schools are, by default, recommending to parents that they start the process of assuming guardianship over their disabled child before they become an adult. Continue Reading

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was enacted in 1990 to promote, among other goals, economic self-sufficiency for people with disabilities. Nevertheless, many people with disabilities do not achieve this goal. In fact, people with disabilities and other underserved groups are disproportionately affected by poverty. Research shows that having a disability results in a higher risk of experiencing poverty. Underlying explanations point to people with disabilities not only having fewer opportunities for well-paying jobs, but also having extra costs associated with their disabilities, including medical treatment, care, housing, and transportation. Despite this well-established link between poverty and disability, the relationship between these factors and other characteristics such as race, ethnicity, and gender, remains understudied. Continue Reading

Because understanding intersectionality is critical in creating inclusive and effective policies and practices that reach all people with disabilities, we at the Southeast ADA Center are undertaking a four-part research project to identify the ways in which multiple forms of discrimination can intersect and compound and lead to disparate ADA-related outcomes. Continue Reading