About Living Independently for Today & Tomorrow (LIFTT): LIFTT is a Montana 501(c)3 corporation organized as a Center for Independent Living (CIL). With team members based in Billings and Glendive, LIFTT provides aging and disabled members of the community with programs and services that help empower them to break down the physical, bureaucratic, and cultural barriers that prevent them from being fully independent participants in their lives and communities throughout 18 counties in southeastern and south-central Montana: Big Horn, Carbon, Carter, Custer, Dawson, Fallon, Garfield, Golden Valley, McCone, Musselshell, Powder River, Prairie, Richland, Rosebud, Stillwater, Treasure, Wibaux, and Yellowstone. For more information, please visit liftt.org or download our mobile app for your Apple or Android Device.
The Silence After the Shutdown
Let’s talk about what happens when something foundational disappears. Quietly. Bureaucratically. Strategically.
The Administration for Community Living (ACL) — that almost anonymous federal body that for over a decade made independence, autonomy, and access possible for millions — has now ceased to exist as we knew it. Gone. Absorbed. Reassigned. Paper-shuffled into nonexistence. For some, this might sound like just another Washington restructuring. But for those of us in the disability community — for people who live the tension between autonomy and assistance every single day — it’s much more than that. It’s a signal—a dissonant note in the fragile melody of freedom.
What Was the ACL, Really?
In theory, it was a hub—a place where funding, programs, and advocacy converged—a center that understood that aging and disability weren’t “problems to solve” but human conditions that deserve dignity and agency.
In practice, it was why Centers for Independent Living, like Living Independently for Today and Tomorrow—LIFTT, could do what we do. It supported our core. It didn’t just write checks. It helped affirm a worldview: disabled people should define their lives, not be defined by institutions.
And now, it’s gone.
What Does This Mean for LIFTT and Centers Like Ours?
- Let’s not sugarcoat it. The Ground Beneath Us Just Shifted- Funding the lifeblood of our programming is suddenly uncertain. Sure, we’re told that programs will be “reallocated” within other agencies. But anyone who’s worked in systems knows that fragmentation breeds delay, dilution, and drift. Things fall through the cracks, and sometimes people do, too.
- A Vacuum Where a Voice Used to Be- The ACL didn’t just move money. It stood for something. It gave the disability community a dedicated federal space. Now, that voice has no clear microphone. No seat. No badge. And that matters when laws are interpreted, when policies are drafted, when people fight for the right to just live.
The Risk of Reverting
Without centralized, disability-centered leadership, the independent living movement risks being recast as a social service, not a civil rights movement. We could be pushed from co-creators to passive recipients, from agency to dependency. And we’ve been there before.
So, What Now?
This could be the moment to grieve. Or to rage. Or to retreat. But maybe — just maybe — it’s also a moment to adapt.
- Diversify or Die (Financially Speaking)- LIFTT and CILs nationwide need to think beyond traditional federal funding. Local grants, fee-for-service models, and social enterprises like thrift stores aren’t just survival strategies; they’re declarations of self-determination.
- Local is the New Federal- If Washington has gone silent, our voices at the city council, state capitol, and community halls must get louder. Louder and sharper. We know what inclusion looks like. We’ve lived it. It’s time to educate those who still don’t
- Radical Visibility Disability can no longer be the invisible thread in policy. We need to bring stories forward, disrupt assumptions, and show up in every space that shapes how life is lived. We can’t just react; we must lead.
A Word to Our People
To the advocates, the peer mentors, the independent living specialists, and the consumers, we’re not done. The system may be shifting beneath us, but we are rooted in something deeper: community, resistance, and the radical idea that all people, regardless of body or mind, deserve agency over their lives.
Let them erase agencies. But we will not erase ourselves.
Carlos A. Ramalho, Executive Director
LIFTT – Living Independently for Today & Tomorrow