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For ADAPT, Big Gains in D.C.By Mike Ervin It was a week of major gains for ADAPT recently in Washington, D.C. ADAPT received promises from legislators to co-sponsor the Community Choice Act (S 799, H.R. 1621), formerly known as MiCASSA, and other commitments to push for hearings in both houses of Congress. The rights group also was notified by staff of Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chair of the Senate Finance Committee, and Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, that both panels would hold hearings on CCA before the end of the year. ADAPT earned the support of the Democratic National Committee, which also signed on as a sponsor of the inaugural National Fun-Run for Disability Rights. The event, held April 29th in Upper Senate Park in Washington, D.C., raised more than $75,000. Mike Hudson, chair of the Republican National Committee, declined to give an RNC endorsement of CCA and agreed only to get information about it to state chapters. ADAPT also was able to secure meetings with HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson and the American Hospital Association (AHA). In the ADAPT action of September 2005, when hundreds of us gathered outside HUD headquarters to demand Jackson come out and face us, we were told he wasn’t in. But when word got around that a few dozen more of us had appeared at Jackson’s house, suddenly he came out. This time he came to us and again said we would meet again three times a year. He said he would try to facilitate a meeting between ADAPT and Reps. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Maxine Waters (D-Calif.). Frank is chair of the House Committee on Financial Services; Waters is chair of the Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity. Jackson said that by September he would let us know how many housing vouchers for persons with disabilities he has recovered from the 58 percent lost due to a combination of federal budget cuts and misappropriation by local entities that administer the voucher program. This time, Jackson told the crowd of 400: “Fair housing is a right! We will do everything in our power to make sure you have affordable, accessible, integrated housing options in this country.” Later in the day, we marched and then stormed an office building that houses the AHA. We completely clogged the lobby and chanted. A security guard stood on her desk with a telephone receiver pressed against one ear and one hand cupped over the other ear in an attempt to muffle the racket. Our goal was for AHA to endorse the CCA and to work with ADAPT to develop a hospital-discharge protocol that will steer people into community services, not institutions. We demanded that AHA put ADAPT on the agenda of its next conference and write a letter to all AHA member hospitals encouraging them to make discharge referrals that do not inappropriately segregate and institutionalize people with disabilities. After about two hours, we learned that AHA officials will meet with ADAPT within 30 days. We retreated back to our hotel. At the time it seemed like we had settled for a face-saving “maybe” from AHA. But soon after, Rick Pollack, AHA executive vice president, issued a letter to congressional leaders endorsing the CCA on behalf of his group. The letter read: “The Community Choice Act of 2007 looks to make important changes in how long-term care is delivered with state Medicaid programs by giving patients more choice for care than an institutional setting. The proposed demonstration projects could give new insights into the best ways to provide community-based health care.” Earlier, nearly 500 members of ADAPT distributed CCA information to each senator and representative. The 10-minute DVD, edited from more than six hours of testimony at the March 2006 national hearing in Nashville, Tenn., focused on institutional bias in America’s long-term-care systems. “Our work … accomplished even more than we hoped, but we still have so far to go,” said Bob Kafka, ADAPT national organizer. “We are cautiously optimistic and committed ************************ Mike Ervin is a member of American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today, a group that works for the civil rights of people with disabilities. This is his account of a recent “action.” |
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