Across the many neighborhoods that make up the metropolitan Chicago area, people with intellectual and developmental disabilities rely on an array of support services to live, work and thrive.

Nationally, 69 percent of the community providers that deliver these services are turning away new referrals, and 39 percent are discontinuing existing services because they lack the funding needed to recruit and retain qualified workers. This puts access to services in jeopardy at a time when nearly 512,000 Americans who are disabled are languishing on their states’ waiting lists.

Now, another crisis looms.

Community-based services are almost exclusively funded by Medicaid, and in Congress, the House recently approved a budget resolution directing the committee that oversees Medicaid to slash $880 billion in spending. Such a drastic cut will all but dismantle the federal Medicaid program, leaving hundreds of thousands more Americans without the services they need.

As a provider of these services, I know firsthand that every community, including this wonderful city of Chicago, is better when it includes everyone—regardless of their disability. If U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth and U.S. Rep. Sean Casten agree that our community is stronger when it includes people with disabilities, then they must reject any proposals to cut funding from the federal Medicaid program.

Editor’s note: Gerard S. Beagles is executive director of Garden Center Services.