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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

May 10, 1998

ADAPT names Tennessee FIRST Worst

83% of the residents in American nursing homes are women according to the Health Care Financing Administration. On this Mother's Day, 500 members of ADAPT gathered in Court Square to hear national organizer Mike Auberger name Tennessee as the nation's worst state for directing public dollars into nursing homes and institutions instead of communities. Deborah Cunningham, Director of Memphis Center for Independent Living, accepted the award on behalf of Tennessee and promised to take it to the governor. Tennessee was followed by Mississippi, Louisiana, Missouri, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Florida, Ohio, and Kentucky to complete the list of the nation's ten worst states.

Speakers at the rally included Charles Hall of Tennessee People First which sued the state to close institutions for persons with developmental disabilities. Hall was joined by Mary Stockley of the AARP, and LaTonya Reeve, formerly of Memphis, who said, "I'm ashamed to say that I'm from Tennessee. I had to leave the city of Memphis and move to Denver to get attendant services."

Graphic: A pastel drawing of a home; Text: MiCASA! Following the rally in Court Square, 200 of the ADAPT activists stood vigil along McElmore Street across from the Kings Daughters and Sons Home which is a nursing home almost entirely of younger persons with disabilities. Backed by chants of "Can you hear us, on the inside?" and "Free Our People, Now!", 2 ADAPT members laid flowers at the entrance of the nursing home. "We wanted our brothers and sisters who are still being warehoused in nursing homes to know that those of us on the outside continue to fight for their freedom and their right to choose where they live," said Dawn Russell of Memphis.

ADAPT, a national disability rights organization, is in Memphis this week for four days of demonstrations in protest of Tennessee and America's very poor commitment to REAL choice in long-term services. Since 1990 ADAPT has been working to change the institutional bias in our long term care system. The cornerstone of ADAPT's REAL Choice campaign for home and community based services is MiCASA, the Medicaid Community Attendant Services Act of 1997. Introduced by Speaker Newt Gingrich, the legislation has 63 co-sponsors in the House including Tennessee Congressmen Harold Ford and Bob Clement. MiCASA would give people REAL Choice, by allowing resources that now pay for them to live in a nursing home or other institution to be used where they choose-their own home in their own community. "I have never met anyone who wanted to live in a nursing home," stated Deborah Cunningham.

Contact:
Michael Auberger
(901) 528-1800, Room M-4

Jennifer Burnett

phone: (901) 522-9700, Room 611

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For more information contact:
National ADAPT (303) 333-6698
national@adapt.org

ADAPT of Texas: (512) 442-0252
adapt@adapt.org

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The Memphis Center for Independent Living
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