Imagine if you will, you are ready to move into your own apartment after spending 4 years living in a nursing home. Yes, you are disabled and you need 24 hour care, but it’s time to find your own place and be in charge of your own life.

Lianne Rittberg is ready to move on. Because of her circumstances, she needs 24 hour care. Medicaid and Medicare has underwritten her care in the nursing home and New York State’s Developmental Disabilities Service Office (DDSO) will cover her rent in an apartment. Medicaid will pay for her caregivers.

Lianne, who recently celebrated her 44th birthday, lived on her own with a 24 hour caregiver in Middletown. Because of circumstances beyond her control- the agency that provided her caregiver was short staffed and could no longer provide the help she needed - she had to leave her apartment and ended up in a nursing home. Now she is told that she must go through psychological testing and be on a waiting list before she can be eligible for an apartment. “I don’t know why they make it so hard and make us jump through hoops,” she said. “You have to make it easier for people with disabilities. Everybody says we need to be treated equally and fairly, and we aren’t.”

“If we had a simple application and a couple of questions for DDSO,” she said, “it would be so much fairer.”

“We have to fast track the system for people with disabilities that matches up with non-disabled people. It’s reasonable to wait 2-3 months for an apartment,” Lianne said. “For a person with a disability it’s 6-8 months to even see an apartment. We see more paperwork than others who are not disabled.”

“I want people to see how unfairly we are treated.”