2nd ADAPT Wordless Wednesday

I have nothing of note to write about today and realized I've only posted pics from half of the action. To see the first half, click here

On Tuesday, at HUD we taped the signs so that the people who locked themselves inside could read them

Banner says "ACCESSIBLE AFFORDABLE INTEGRATED HOUSING"

Spitfire always has a sign like this on her chair. It says "Nursing Homes = Hitler's Final Solution" and has some swastikas

Banner says "DONOVAN MEET WITH US NOW!"

Someone used chalk to draw the wheelie dude inside of jail on the sidewalk outside of HUD "HELP ME"

Banner says "DEFENDING OUR FREEDOM" I'm all the way over on the end in the baseball cap. Did I post this before?

Can you tell that's me chuggin on the water bottle? It was HOT outside of DOL that Wednesday!!!

We went to DOL just to use their deck so we could scream at Nancy Pelosi who was getting an award in this building across the street. Thanks DOL!

Last but not least, here I am dancin Wednesday night

Pics from Julie, ADAPT, CDR

First ADAPT Wordless Wednesday of This Action

Button says "There Ain't No Power Like The Power of ADAPT And The Power OF ADAPT Won't Stop SAY WHAT?"

The front of the line to the "funeral"

Another view of the casket

Diane dropping names into the casket

Our letter to Obama, unsigned. The secret Service refused to deliver it.

Our letter signed

In front of the White House Gate

Julie & Laura handcuffed to the gate in front of the Treasury

In front of Mayor Fenty's office

Sam from DOJ with the lovely Steve Gold. I ♡ Sam!

Pics from ADAPT, Julie, Scott, & maybe CDR

"SHAME ON YOU!" Edition of PINT

My Review of Sun & Mon at ADAPT

I'm feeling a bit blah, but promised myself I'd make 23 posts this month, as well as lacked some stuff from the last action, so I will push forward even if this turns out to be not my best work.

I feel like the ADAPT leadership dropped the ball Sunday. It wasn't like we were having some super secret action or anything. We were told to all wear black, but weren't told why. We didn't chant while marching towards Freedom Plaza, but weren't told why.

When we got there 50 people volunteered to be flag holders (most of them standing I think), including me, (can you spot me left? you can if you click on it, which'll make it bigger) and stood or sat while several people spoke about the abysmal state of community based attendant services in their state, and how 10s of thousands of disabled Americans are at risk of being institutionalized due to severe funding cuts. We also heard from several nursing home escapees, which, as someone who has never been institutionalized, is always very sobering to hear. It reminds me of how easily my friends or I could become stuck somewhere in an instant.

I didn't even realize until a friend mentioned, as we were tossing bits of paper into a coffin, with names of institutionalized people who were lost on them, that the whole event had been arranged to be a mock symbolic funeral. I didn't realize until I read something online Friday that the casket was carried all the way to Freedom Plaza at the front of the line and that we hadn't chanted because funerals are supposed to be somber. Neither did another friend of mine who had been there, until I told her. That is where the ball was dropped. It would have been nice if it had been clear.

Monday, I was impressed that my roomate knew where we were going before we even left the hotel. She said they only pass out the "jewelry" when we go to the White House. We were there to deliver a letter to Prez Obama -- that we all signed -- on the importance of long term care reform. I was not stationed in front of the White House gates, but in front of the Treasury, which is located next door. Very disappointing, but I have to remind myself that everyone has an important role.

The Secret Service would only let 25 people through because they said if there were more then that you have to have a permit. So the largest group blocked off both directions of an intersection just past the Treasury. I'm not sure what streets those are. Then, after awhile, we were told to keep the sidewalk clear (but they decided to use the street, which I think was wise, because of how many people there were). The tsunami was so quick, so exciting, that at the time it felt like it happened twice as fast as the video shows (you can see the giant letter in it). Is bum rush a real phrase? ADAPT bum rushed the White House and it was GREAT! SO EXHILARATING! JUST AWESOME! I don't need antidepressants, I just need ADAPT! THE HIGH! Who needs drugs? I sure don't. One of these days I'll be one of the ones handcuffed to the fence, and I can't wait! Although bum rushing would be cool also...

The Mayor's office visit was pretty tame, so you can just read the official press release, 2 posts below.

On Tuesday ADAPT went to HUD

We were there for 6ish hours shouting "Hey, hey, Shaun, Shaun! We can yell and scream til dawn!" I began to think we would be but after bumping it up and blocking cars in the parking garage at 3:30, we got what we wanted rather quickly-- a meeting with Secretary Donovan on October 15th. [the doors to HUD said "WELCOME TO HUD." Then one said "WELCOME TO ADAPT."]

Washington, DC---Building on momentum from a nonviolent civil disobedience action at the Obama White House yesterday, which resulted in the arrest of 16 people, 300 members of ADAPT today have stormed the headquarters of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). ADAPT, a national disability rights action group, is demanding that HUD and its Secretary, Shaun Donovan, be held accountable for resolving the dire housing crisis faced by low income people with disabilities and seniors.

“People have got to understand that for thousands of people with disabilities and seniors, freedom to live in the community means having both a place to live and community-based support services. They go hand in hand,” said Cassie James Holdsworth of Philadelphia ADAPT. “You have the civil right to be able to live in your own community, and not be stolen away and shipped off to a nursing home or institution.”

ADAPT plans to make several concrete proposals to HUD to improve its housing. Those proposals include increasing the number of accessible public housing units; reform of funding streams that would promote construction of integrated, not segregated, housing; define a “home” as not more than 4 unrelated people living together; increase public housing vouchers for people with disabilities who want to leave nursing homes; and perhaps most creatively, expand the definition of “homelessness” to include all people with disabilities and seniors with disabilities now in nursing facilities.

“The forced segregation of people with disabilities and seniors rests significantly on the failure of the federal government to adopt mechanisms to increase affordable, accessible, integrated housing,” said Bruce Darling of Rochester ADAPT. “HUD needs to be accountable for ‘disappearing’ our people and hiding us from the public by continuing its practice of programs that promote segregation.”

For thirty years, ADAPT has been recognized as an international role model in the struggle for disability rights, having helped to inspire nonviolent civil disobedience disability struggles as far away as Europe and South Korea. “Today, we literally have observers around the world watching us fight for social change,” said Rachel Siler of Chicago ADAPT. “Not only the White House but HUD should be part of that change with us.”

To learn more about ADAPT, see www.adapt.org. To follow ADAPT in real time during its actions in DC, go to http://twitter.com/NationalADAPT.

After the White House, ADAPT Went to DC City Hall on Monday

Washington, DC---300 members of ADAPT, the national disability rights organization, are at DC’s City Hall to hold the DC city government accountable for the type of Medicaid long term care services it uses for people with disabilities and seniors. In addition, the District holds a controversial contract with the Woods Services Institution, a residential facility in Langhorne, Pennsylvania which had its operating license revoked following the July 24th death of a resident who died after being left in a hot van.

“Mayor Adrian Fenty and City Hall are accountable for the quality of life of every DC resident, including low income people with disabilities on Medicaid who have been forced to move out of district to receive long term care services at institutions like Woods Services,” said Bobby Coward of Capital Area ADAPT. “Mayor Fenty needs to support bringing our people home, whether they are at Woods or at any nursing facility or institution.”

Under Fenty, the DC city government has embarked on a policy direction to reduce personal care services within the Medicaid State Plan. ADAPT wants DC city government to instead fully fund services which support people with disabilities living independently in the community and prevent unnecessary and illegal institutionalization.

Capital Area ADAPT is asking Fenty and his successor to implement an Olmstead Plan for the District which includes 1) phasing out JB Johnson Nursing Center a 230-bed nursing facility owned by the District, 2) provide community choice in long term care, 3) implementing an aggressive effort by the District’s Aging and Disability Resource Center aimed at identifying and support nursing facility residents who want to live in the community, and 4) effectively addressing the need for affordable, accessible integrated housing.

To learn more about ADAPT, please visit www.adapt.org

ADAPT Took State Medicaid Budget Cuts Fight to the White House on Monday

Washington, DC---300 members of ADAPT, the national disability rights grassroots organization, are at the White House, demanding that the Obama administration exercise concrete leadership in his commitment to expand and support community-based long term care services for people with disabilities and seniors on Medicaid. ADAPT is demanding that Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to the President, and Melody Barnes, Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy publicly address the ADAPT members assembled in front of the White House to answer specific proposals ADAPT is offering to work with the Administration.

“I want to know that the White House is actively working with consumers of community-based long term care services to create federal expansion of consumer controlled and non-medical model long term services and supports,” said Randy Alexander of ADAPT of Tennessee. “States should be accountable for saving money by directing Medicaid funds towards cost-saving community supports rather than costly institutionalization. In this fiscal crisis, that is the right thing to do.”

President Obama created the bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform to address our nation's fiscal challenges. The Commission is charged with identifying policies to improve the fiscal situation in the medium term and to achieve fiscal sustainability over the long run.

“It is vital that the Commission evaluate the fiscal unsustainability of the Medicaid institutional bias by hearing testimony from people with disabilities who personally use community-based long term care services and have been victimized by or are at risk of having their community based service hours cut,” said Bruce Darling of Rochester ADAPT. “ADAPT has both grassroots and policy experience to offer the Commission to create a truly sustainable fiscal future for state long term care services.”

For more information about ADAPT, visit www.adapt.org and http://twitter.com/NationalADAPT

A Disabled Manifesto

I thought this would be appropriate to post on the first day of the latest national action. ENJOY! Photo is from the Fall 2008 DUH CITY action and is copyright ADAPT. It doesn't have much to do with the post other then I haven't found a reason to post it yet & I liken the kids in the DUH CITY jail to us crips being imprisoned in TAB imposed limitations.

A DISABLED MANIFESTO

By John R. Woodward, M.S.W. Center for Independent Living of North Florida, Inc

We proclaim that we are born free and equal human beings; that our disabilities are limitations only, and that our identity does not derive from being disabled.

We proclaim that we have the same value as people who are not disabled, and we reject any scheme of labeling or classifying us that encourages people to think of us as having diminished value.

We reject the idea that institutions must be created to"care" for us, and proclaim that these institutions have been used to "manage" us in ways that non-disabled people are not expected to accept. We particularly denounce institutions whose purpose is to punish us for being disabled, or to confine us for the convenience of others.

We reject the notion that we need "experts," to tell ushow to live, especially experts from the able-bodied world. We are not diagnoses in need of a cure or cases to be closed. We are human, with human dreams and ambitions.

We deny that images of disability are appropriatemetaphors for incompetence, stupidity, ugliness or weakness.

We are aware that as people with disabilities, we have been considered objects of charity and we have been considered commodities. We are neither. We reject charitable enterprises that exploit our lifestyle to titillate others, and which propose to establish the rules by which we must live without our participation. We also reject businesses that use us as "warm bodies" to provide a passive market for their services, again laying down rules by which we must live for their profit. We recognize that the lines between charities and businesses are blurred in the disability industry, and we do not accept services from either if their essential function is to exploit us.

We assert our rights of self-determination in the face ofrules, eligibility criteria, regulations, customs, laws or other barriers, and we pledge not to allow any authority or institution to deprive us of our freedom of choice.

Finally, we assert that any service we need, from specialized teaching to personal care, can be provided to us in the community among our non-disabled peers. Segregated institutions are not necessary to serve us, and they have been the greatest source of our oppression, especially when they have been run by able-bodied people without our participation.

All human beings are more alike than we are different. We recognize that when we assert this belief we will find ourselves in conflict with regressive institutions and their supporters, some of whom may be disabled themselves. We do not expect thousands of years of stereotyping to dissipate quickly. We commit ourselves and those who come after us to challenge our oppression on every level until we are allowed to be fully human and assert our individuality ahead of our disability.

ADAPT Activists to Storm, Washington, DC

For immediate release

Contact:

Cheryl Gottlieb (Maryland ADAPT), (301) 758-4473

www.adapt.org

ADAPT activists to Storm Washington DC; Vow to Fight State Cuts to Medicaid Home Services

Fighting dangerous state Medicaid budget cuts across the country, the national grassroots disability rights action group ADAPT is planning direct actions at several venues in Washington, DC between September 19 to 22 to demand that states save Medicaid-funded home and community based services. These services support low income people with disabilities and who are aging to stay in their own homes instead of being forced into nursing facilities to obtain services. During this critical election season, ADAPT plans to make it clear that saving Medicaid services is key to winning the disability vote.

"During this time of fiscal panic, governors are looking for ways to save dollars," notes William Fields, a Baltimore City Resident. "Hundreds of us are coming to Washington because Congress and the White House need to step up efforts to protect Medicaid community services in the states. I use home services and without someone to assist me, I'd be waiting on some nursing home aide to change me or feed me whenever she was done with the other fifty people living in the same facility. With home services, I am in charge of my life."

Current Medicaid law mandates that states use their Medicaid programs to pay for nursing homes, but the law does not equally mandate that states pay for the same services in a person's own home. Today, most states recognize that providing home and community based services (HCBS) is a less expensive solution than institutions. However, in these tight fiscal times, Medicaid dollars funding "optional" services like HCBS are first on the budget chopping block, while the mandatory institutional budgets are rarely touched. ADAPT's current "Defending Our Freedom" campaign is a direct response to states' attacks against HCBS, services that allow people with disabilities to take care of themselves, raise their families and be part of society.

"Without the home services funded by Medicaid, hundreds, if not thousands, of people with disabilities in my state would be forced to live in nursing homes or institutions," said Joe Stramondo of Michigan ADAPT. "Some states are virtually on the edge of bankruptcy. It makes no sense to spend extra dollars on institutions when those same dollars could fund more people with disabilities to live in the communities of our choice."

To learn more about Defending Our Freedom, please visit http://www.adapt.org/adapt-campaign.php

Wordless Wednesday ADAPT Preview

This is Bryan from Rochester last April (and Mike Ervin from Chicago creepin' in the background). Doesn't Bryan have the coolest hair EVER?