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SASHA ASLANIAN: Sherry Gray and her little sister Susie were born a year apart. They grew up a world apart.

SHERRY GRAY: There are two ways to see my sister. Probably if you've never met her before, you'll see her and you'll see she's only 4 foot 4. And she's in a wheelchair, and she's only 80 pounds and she can't talk. And you'll probably hear her diagnosis that she's profoundly mentally retarded and has cerebral palsy and kyphoscoliosis and epilepsy. But let me tell you something other things about my sister.

SASHA ASLANIAN: Gray rushes to describe a sister she barely saw for 40 years. Susie has better than 20 over 20 eyesight, an acute sense of hearing. She delights in wearing sparkly rings and eating banana splits.

SHERRY GRAY: She looks like she's in her 20s. Her skin is flawless, and that's a wonderful thing. Except why is her skin flawless? Her skin is flawless because she never went outside.

SASHA ASLANIAN: Susie grew up in an institution from the age of three. In those days, it was the early 60s, parents were told they couldn't provide the best care for their handicapped children. Susie didn't emerge for 40 years. Sherry Gray says, part of what the ADA helped do was make it possible for her sister to rejoin the world outside.

SHERRY GRAY: It's the idea that if you open a door and say, this person can take the train, this person needs to go to work, this person can eat in a restaurant, you have an idea that this person is fully a part of the community. This person is someone that we value, that we care about. And that leads to a whole new set of ideas.

For me, it was like a paradigm shift because I grew up thinking, my sister is a stupid person. My sister is not fully human. My sister should live in an institution until she dies. And that the best we can do is make her comfortable until she dies. In fact, when I was a child, I was told, don't get too attached to her. She probably won't live past 18. My sister's almost 50. She's 49, and she's in fine health.

SASHA ASLANIAN: Gray became Susie's guardian and moved her to Minnesota from Indiana in 2004. Susie lives in a small group home, attends a day program, and on Thursday nights, she swims with her sister at the courage center pool in Stillwater.

SHERRY GRAY: It feels warm today.

SASHA ASLANIAN: Sherry guides Susie's wheelchair down a ramp right into the pool. Susie's head bobs in a life preserver, and Sherry holds her as she floats free of the wheelchair. Gray says part of the reason, she decided to move her sister here is because of Minnesota's tradition of supportive nonprofits. Places like the Courage Center, Pacer and Arc. Gray received encouragement to bring her sister here from Charlie Lakin at the University of Minnesota. Lakin's an expert on the ADA. He says Minnesota shouldn't be smug. There's still much to be done. Lakin sees the ADA as a milestone, not as a transformation.

CHARLIE LAKIN: You can walk down the sidewalk and come to a curb cut. You can go to a hotel and you can get in. You can go to a restaurant and there's a way to get to a table. That infrastructure is just terribly, terribly important. But being physically present in society is still not necessarily membership.

SASHA ASLANIAN: Lakin says, people with disabilities still feel particularly unwelcome in the workplace. He points to a substantially higher unemployment rate among disabled people. He cites 70% by some estimates. He is encouraged by what he's hearing from the Obama administration about enforcing the ADA. Local enforcement of the ADA falls to the US Attorney's Office in Minneapolis.

Greg Brooker heads the Civil Division. Brooker investigates complaints and conducts reviews making sure hotels and stadiums are fully accessible. Brooker says, there's been relatively little litigation needed, and most problems have been solved after the deficiencies were pointed out. One case that did go to trial in 2004 was on behalf of deaf and hard of hearing patients in hospitals.

GREG BROOKER: I think the biggest victory was our huge consent decree with Fairview, which triggered other settlements with regard to hospitals and making hospitals accessible for their deaf and hard of hearing patients.

SASHA ASLANIAN: Well, qualified sign language interpreters are now on call for hospitals around the clock. Back in Charlie Lakin's office at the U, he nods that lawsuits and laws have helped. But he says, they're not the main thing.

CHARLIE LAKIN: It's really that the movement is now being run by people with disabilities themselves. And I think that, for me, has been far more transformative than any laws or regulations. It's the recognition that whose life this is and who has the right to define what that life will be.

SASHA ASLANIAN: One such leader is Cliff Poetz, who works down the hall from Lakin as a community liaison. Pott's 61 with a gray beard and uses a walker. He became a disability rights activist in 1970 when he spoke out against the use of the word retarded. He caught the attention of Senator Ted Kennedy in 1973 and became the first developmentally disabled person to testify before Congress.

Poetz remembers on the trip to Washington, he shocked the overprotective staff when he went off on his own to catch a movie in the nation's capital. Today, Poetz goals are much bigger than eliminating the R word. This year, he was pleased that Governor Pawlenty signed an apology to disabled people for the treatment they received in state institutions. Poetz himself lived in an institution, The Portland Residents. He and Lakin reminisce.

CHARLIE LAKIN: But that's where Cliff lived for a few years until. He struck out on his own.

CLIFF POETZ: And then I been born [INAUDIBLE], and I live in public housing.

SASHA ASLANIAN: Today happens to be a big day for Poetz. He's putting in an offer on his first house.

CLIFF POETZ: I'm about to go for homeownership. I'm meeting with the banker today.

CHARLIE LAKIN: So that's the story of the times. Cliff lived in an institution of 200 people, and then in boarding care, kind of group home settings, and then in a place of his own in subsidized housing. And later on this month, he'll become a homeowner. So it parallels a lot of what's happened in the last 30 or 40 years.

CLIFF POETZ: By the end of the day, I may make an offer, which would be very exciting.

SASHA ASLANIAN: Poetz says he's looking forward to having a home of his own for privacy and an investment, the same reasons as anyone else. For Minnesota Public Radio news, I'm Sasha Aslanian.