National Portability Initiative
People with disabilities lose services simply for crossing a state line because the United States ties support to geography instead of the person. A system that limits movement limits freedom and when freedom cannot travel, it is not fully a right.
The National Portability Initiative exists to correct this by shifting disability support from location-based eligibility to person-based continuity. Independence should not require staying in place. Care should travel with the individual, the same way other federal protections do.
This initiative is the first step in removing enforced immobility so people can move for family, safety, work, education, or belonging without losing what keeps them alive. It is the foundation for a new system.
Overview
The National Portability Initiative is Beyond The Box Advocacy’s first systems-change model under the Enforced Barriers Project. It creates a federal pathway for people to keep their services when they move, instead of restarting eligibility or losing care entirely. By making support portable, the initiative establishes mobility as the baseline condition for real independence and makes larger reform across the remaining barriers possible.
What Comes Next
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People with disabilities can lose care simply by crossing a state line because services are tied to geography instead of the person. Mobility becomes a risk, not a right, which keeps people trapped in place and unable to move for family, safety, work, or opportunity.
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The National Portability Initiative creates a federal pathway so support follows the person wherever they live. It treats access to care as continuous, not location-based, making independence stable instead of conditional.
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Portability restores both personal freedom and political power. People can live where their lives actually work, and the disability community becomes a unified national constituency and no longer divided by 50 state systems.