About the Advocacy Center

The Advocacy Center is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the human and legal rights of people with disabilities and senior citizens across Louisiana. This has been the driving force behind the Advocacy Center for more than 30 years.

The Advocacy Center is one of fifty-six Protection and Advocacy (P&A) systems across the United States. The impetus for the creation of P&As was a series of television reports about the adverse conditions at the Willowbrook institution in New York, a facility for people with developmental disabilities. The Protection and Advocacy system was created to advocate for individuals like the ones in Willowbrook who often cannot advocate for themselves. Over the past 30 years, the Protection and Advocacy programs have been expanded to serve people with mental illness, people with physical disabilities, and people with traumatic brain injuries.

The Advocacy Center is well known among the disability community for taking on tough causes.  In recent years, for example, the Advocacy Center filed a class action lawsuit against FEMA alleging the lack of accessible trailers for Hurricane Katrina and Rita evacuees with disabilities. Brou v. FEMA resulted in improved access to accessible trailers and increased awareness of disability issues by FEMA.

The Advocacy Center has also been influential in encouraging Louisiana to provide community services and an increased number of waiver slots for those who can live in the community. As a result of another Advocacy Center lawsuit, Barthelemy v. Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, DHH greatly increased the number of waiver slots adults with disabilities.