Moving to end the state’s lax oversight of the developmentally disabled, the Cuomo administration on Wednesday announced an agreement with the State Police to establish guidelines for reporting possible crimes against the disabled to law enforcement authorities.

Jonathan Carey did not die for lack of money.
New York State and the federal government provided $1.4 million annually per person to care for Jonathan and the other residents of the Oswald D. Heck Developmental Center, a warren of low-rise concrete and brick buildings near Albany.

Health-care providers on Wednesday lambasted state changes to a Medicaid program that make it harder for patients, particularly the elderly, to get in-home care for such everyday activities as eating, bathing and going to the bathroom.

Advocates for people with disabilities have filed a federal class-action lawsuit seeking to block the state from cutting in-home care services to 4,000 low-income individuals who need extensive assistance to remain at home and out of an institution.

The Christie administration on Tuesday announced a plan to create 600 community residential beds for people with developmental disabilities by June 2013.

The members and staff of Community Access Unlimited applauded a state plan to provide people with disabilities and/or their families an annual stipend to help pay for the cost of providing services. New Jersey has proposed the $10,000 to $15,000 stipend in light of the state’s inability to provide people with disabilities sufficient access to community living, as required by law.

A 4-year-old girl with cerebral palsy needs a wheelchair lift to get in and out of her home on Staten Island. Her parents have the money to put it in, but they met opposition from the condominium board for Richmond Mews in Bulls Head.

Several hundred demonstrators with disabilities gathered outside Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) office Tuesday to protest his budget’s proposed reduction in Medicaid funding.

Six years ago, Ned Rogers was a 22-year-old college student in Arizona when he was in a catastrophic car accident that left him a quadriplegic and severely brain damaged.

Services that help the disabled have been put on the chopping block up at the state Capitol, spurring a march and rally Tuesday morning.