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National ADAPT Takes Action in Chicago

By Mike Ervin

When ADAPT leaders decide to do a national action in a city beyond Washington, D.C., two major factors carry a lot of weight.

First, there needs to be a lot of support from the local community. Carrying off a national ADAPT action is a major logistical undertaking, as it is anytime about 500 people in wheelchairs converge. The more responsibilities are delegated — such as finding an at least partly accessible hotel and transporting everyone to and from airports — the better it works.

Second, there need to be appealing targets for actions that advance the national and local disability rights agendas.

The national ADAPT (Americans Disabled for Attendant Programs Today) organization decided that Chicago was long overdue for a return visit since its last action there in 1992. The Chicago ADAPT chapter has been active and effective since it was launched in April 1984. And there are plenty of targets.

Illinois consistently ranks near the bottom among states in the ratio of money it spends on home and community-based supports as opposed to institutionalization. ADAPT cites 2006 figures compiled by researchers at Thomson Healthcare from data supplied by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that show Illinois ranks in the bottom four states in funding community services for people with intellectual/developmental disabilities and in the bottom 10 for providing overall community-based long-term care.

Chicago is also the home of presidential hopeful Senator Barack Obama. He was high on the list of targets because he was not nor ever had been a co-sponsor of the Community Choice Act, ADAPT’s pet long-term-care reform legislation. The plan was to hold a massive action outside his campaign or Senate office, which might have drawn national media attention to the fact that none of the candidates is saying much about long-term care. But just before ADAPT came to town, Obama signed on as a CCA co-sponsor.

The Day One target was the American Medical Association, whose headquarters is in Chicago. The action began in typical ADAPT style: a long, slow, single-file march culminating in a mad dash. Members blocked all entrances to the AMA building, including the one to the parking garage.

ADAPT demanded that the AMA:

· Endorse the Community Choice Act;

· Work with it to develop an action plan that ensures that people with disabilities and seniors get real choice in long-term care services and supports so they are able to live in the legally required “most integrated setting” and provide the AMA membership with continuing medical education programs about community-based alternatives to institutionalization;

· Develop an ethics policy requiring doctors to disclose to their patients any financial interest they have in a nursing facility when they are discussing long-term care with those patients, and to not refer any patient to a nursing home in which the doctor has a financial interest;

· Require its board of trustees and leadership to divest themselves of all financial interests in nursing facilities, etc.

After a standoff of about four hours, negotiations broke down and Chicago police arrested 55, most of whom were blocking doors. The arrestees were given citations and released.

AMA was also a target in 1992 and ADAPT got a similar cold shoulder. This time, AMA CEO Dr. Michael Maves told the Chicago Tribune the CCA “deserves our full consideration” and was being reviewed by the AMA legislative policy team.

The Day Two target was another repeat of 1992, the James R. Thompson Center downtown. The Chicago offices of the governor are on the top floor of this building.

In 1992, ADAPT members blocked all elevators, escalators and doorways and shut the building down all day. This year, the same thing happened.

ADAPT demanded that the governor:

· Work with the Chicago organization to ensure that all persons in institutions who want to move out will have the opportunity to do so and not face denial of their requests for any reason;

· Increase funding for community-based long-term care by 5 percent a year for the next five years;

· Amend the state budget law to allow funds currently earmarked for institutional placement to be used for community-based services.

After about six hours of negotiations, representatives of Governor Rod Blagojevich came down to the lobby to announce that the governor had agreed to meet with Chicago ADAPT within five weeks. They also announced a pledge from the governor that a shuttered downstate state institution formerly known as Lincoln Developmental Center would never be reopened as an institution for people with developmental disabilities.

The latter was to many observers an extraordinary concession. The previous Republican governor had ordered the geographically isolated Lincoln closed because of deplorable conditions. But when Blagojevich, a Democrat, first ran for governor in 2002, he pledged to reopen Lincoln. The old building was demolished and four 10 bed homes were built on the site, currently unused. Blagojevich had been intensely criticized in the press and by disability activists for planning to reopen an institution in an era when other states are rapidly closing them. Blagojevich even admitted in two previous meetings with Chicago ADAPT that his Lincoln campaign promise was a mistake.

The Day Three target was the Chicago headquarters of Council 31 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the union representing workers in state facilities such as Lincoln. AFSCME has long opposed attempts by ADAPT and others to reverse the institutional bias in Medicaid spending, both nationally and locally.

According to Bob Kafka, national organizer for ADAPT, two previous ADAPT sit-ins in the AFSCME national offices in Washington, D.C., led to two meetings with AFSCME President Gerald W. McEntee. Those meetings led to a commitment by McEntee that AFSCME would endorse the CCA. But AFSCME has not yet done so.

AFSCME has also been obstructionist, said Ann Ford, executive director of the Illinois Network of Centers for Independent Living and a wheelchair user from Springfield. Ford said that AFSCME has actively worked against legislation and policy initiatives that might result in the closing of institutions, including Lincoln.

When news broke of the governor’s promise to ADAPT not to reopen Lincoln in its previous capacity, Anders Lindall, a spokesman for Council 31, told the State Journal-Register newspaper in Springfield, “Obviously, we believe that intensive services for the developmentally disabled should be available in Lincoln and that the Lincoln Estates project is a way to provide those services in a state-operated setting that is integrated into the community.”

Ford said of her experience with AFSCME: “They're opposed to anything that closes down anything. They care about jobs because that’s where their dues come from.”

Said Kafka: “They’re more than hostile. They say their concern is for the health and safety of the residents. But their priority is the workers. And if their priority conflicts with ours, they go with the workers. We’re all for workers having good wages and benefits. We just want it to be in a community-based setting.”

When ADAPT stormed the Chicago headquarters, two ADAPT leaders managed to get all the way into the office before the elevators were turned off. The rest of the ADAPT contingent packed the lobby and spilled out onto the sidewalk.

The leaders gave Council 31 officials a written statement to sign stating that the union supports the CCA. AFSCME then turned the tables and gave the ADAPT leaders a handwritten statement for them to sign.

The union described that two-hour encounter in the following press release: “The Chicago office of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Council 31 was visited today by representatives of an organization dedicated to the closure of all congregate-care settings that serve individuals with profound developmental disabilities.

“Although the organization’s representatives had not previously requested a meeting, AFSCME director Henry Bayer and other union leaders immediately invited a delegation of the group to discuss their concerns. Bayer invited the delegation to sign the following joint statement:

‘We believe that people who want to be served and need congregate care should receive that care.

‘We believe that individuals who want to receive services in their home and can receive their services in that setting should be allowed to do so.

‘We believe that the federal and state governments should appropriate sufficient funds to provide quality care in both settings.’

“When the statement was read aloud to those in the lobby, the answer was a loud NO!”

That’s when the police moved in, arresting 120 ADAPT members on charges of refusing to disperse.

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Mike Ervin is a writer and member of ADAPT, a group that works for the civil rights of people with disabilities.

ILUSA.Com

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