Disability advocates urge 'disability rights into every bill,' recount traumatic ER experience

Sarah Landerbilt, director of the Vermont Center for Independent Living and president of the Vermont Coalition for Disability Rights, testified to the Senate Health & Welfare Committee on Feb. 11 on Disability Advocacy Day, urging lawmakers to incorporate disability rights into all bills that affect public health and services.

"Disability is a natural part of the human experience," Landerbilt said, summarizing the coalition’s five principles that emphasize community supports, independent living, peer support and dignity. She described a statewide in‑home vaccination program the center ran with grant funding after the pandemic to reach people who could not leave their homes because of disability, chronic illness or transportation barriers.

Landerbilt told the committee that bills under consideration — including S.189 — matter deeply to people with disabilities because closures or relocations of primary care practices can create complete loss of access for some patients. She illustrated the stakes with a student's account of an emergency‑department encounter: "I've never screamed so long in my entire life," the student wrote about a traumatic visit that left the family confronting police involvement and ongoing retraumatization.

Why it matters: Landerbilt argued that policy choices on public health, mental health and hospital oversight directly shape whether people with disabilities can live safely and with dignity in community settings. She told lawmakers the center’s work showed where public health systems had failed to include disabled Vermonters during and after the pandemic.

She urged the committee to consider recommendations on disabled housing and other system changes in follow‑up hearings and thanked members for the opportunity to present the coalition’s concerns.

Next steps: Committee members thanked Landerbilt, noted a joint hearing on related topics and said they would review disabled housing recommendations. No formal action was recorded during this session.