ADAPT Accentuates the Weeks Message, Makes Demands on the NGA

9/21/05

(WASHINGTON, DC) ADAPT punctuated its message in Washington DC this week by taking its appeal to the National Governor’s Association and demanding they send the ADAPT demands to all fifty state governors offices. The grassroots power of ADAPT comes to a focus in the Nation’s Capitol, but the intolerance, bigotry and exclusion of people with disabilities comes from all levels of government.

“The NGA promised to fax our demands to all the governors,” said Barbara Toomer of Salt Lake City Utah. “Every one in ADAPT can now go home and pressure their individual governors to make things happen.”

ADAPT asked the National Governors Association (NGA) to support restoration of the proposed $10 billion cut in Medicaid, eliminate the institutional bias by implementing Money Follows the Person on a state level, and to plan for HUD vouchers for all people transitioning from an institution into the community. Additionally ADAPT asked the NGA to halt cuts to optional Medicaid programs by US states and to sponsor an initiative to address long-term care services, durable medical equipment, assistive technology, support services, service animals and community housing for Katrina evacuees with disabilities.

This past Sunday ADAPT began the weeks demonstration by sending a similar message to Senator Bill Frist at his home in an exclusive neighborhood along Rock Creek Park. Frist has avoided the healthcare crisis in his home state of Tennessee by leaving the state government to deal with the Medicaid program. Tennessee has cut necessary programs and disqualified hundreds-of-thousands of people to save on the state budget despite a generous federal match that can improve healthcare for the citizens. Senator Frist has not signed on to either Money Follows the Person or MiCASSA legislation that would help to reform the federal Medicaid program and assist the US state governments to serve their constituents in their own homes rather than expensive and undesirable institutions.

Monday, ADAPT coordinated an amazing simultaneous direct action aimed at the Congressional leadership on Capitol Hill. Seven offices were taken-over by ADAPT, with similar demands. Over one hundred activists were arrested when they refused to leave the various offices. The direct-action demonstrated the anger of the disability community over failures and delay from the Congress in dealing with people with disabilities.

Following the arrests, ADAPT was back out on the streets on Tuesday morning to send the message to the US Department of Health and Human Services that ADAPT will NOT sit silently by while members of the disability community are locked-up or locked-out. The crisis of Katrina has highlighted the predicament of many low-income and disabled Americans. The aftermath of the hurricane has created an opportunity for the region to work toward solutions, rather than rebuilding antiquated, undesirable and obsolete institutions. ADAPT demanded the tools necessary to keep Americans with disabilities independent, rather than hidden in transitional facilities until the facility becomes a permanent home.

In the afternoon ADAPT hit the Department of Housing and Urban Development. While one group was at the HUD office, a second smaller group drove to Alexandria Virginia to visit Sec. Alphonso Jackson’s home. The technique worked to bring the mammoth bureaucracy down to a personal scale, and for the first time brought the HUD chief down from his office to meet with ADAPT on the street. ADAPT will meet with HUD concerning housing vouchers to transition Americans out of institutions. 

Today’s action against the NGA emphasizes the ADAPT message and sent it out to the entire country. The struggle will continue in towns and cities across the nation, to the statehouses and back into the US Congress.

- Tim Wheat