by Marianne Dhenin | May 30, 2026 | Americans with Disabilities Act, community-based care, Disability Justice, Discrimination, Health and Human Services, institutionalization, involuntary hospitalization, News, Olmstead, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The right of disabled people to live in community rather than being warehoused in institutions is under attack in a lawsuit currently being pursued by Texas and six other states. But advocacy efforts are persuading states to pull out of the suit against the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Secretary of HHS Robert F. Kennedy Jr., called Texas v. Kennedy.
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by Leah Ida Harris | Mar 12, 2026 | AI, California, Criminalization, Democrats, Donald Trump, Gavin Newsom, Homeless encampment sweeps, Homelessness, housing, ICE, Immigrants, Interview, involuntary hospitalization, Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, Mental Health, Republicans, unhoused, Unhoused People, Urban Camping Ban
Former schoolteacher Theo Henderson had been unhoused for six years when he launched the “We the Unhoused” podcast in 2019 from a park in Los Angeles’s Chinatown. Henderson became unhoused in 2013 when he was evicted after losing his job and falling into medical debt due to spiraling costs related to his diabetes. When he began documenting his experiences and those of his unhoused neighbors…
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by Leah Ida Harris | Nov 26, 2025 | Disability Justice, disability rights, involuntary hospitalization, Massachusetts, Mental Health, News, Psychiatric Confinement, psychiatric facilities, Psychiatry, racial bias, Racism
On November 18, 2025, Massachusetts advocates gathered for hours at the State House as they have, year after year, to beat back yet another legislative proposal for involuntary outpatient commitment, or IOC. Involuntary outpatient commitment laws create a layer of specialized courts that use the so-called “Black Robe Effect,” which uses a judge’s authority to compel people with diagnoses of…
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