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President John F. Kennedy signs the Community Mental Health Act.

1963

The Story of Disability Justice
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The authors of the Community Mental Health Act recognize that hospitals are too often places of custody rather than care for people with disabilities. As such, the act is designed as a reform to institutionalization. It is intended to end the isolation and segregation of disabled people in archaic institutions by shifting funding out of institutions and into home- and community-based care.

The act is established to set aside state funds towards developing protection and advocacy systems, state developmental disabilities councils, and university centers for people with disabilities.

It will be renamed "The Developmental Disabilities Assistance and Bill of Rights Act" in 1984.