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Page A2 • CECIL WHIG, Tuesday, September 9, 2003 LOCAL [image] [image caption] CECIL WHIG/Matt Given. 'Making their way along Route 40 in Elkton, members of the group ADAPT pass through Cecil County on Monday. Their destination is Washington, D.C. [Headline] Group carries message to D.C. By Mike Spector jnspector@cecilwhig.com ELKTON — About 160 people An wheelchairs left motorists on Route 40 in the dust here Monday afternoon. Escorted by state police and slowing down traffic beside them, disabled people "marched" approximately 10.4 miles from Elkton to North East as part of the "Free our People" march sponsored by ADAPT, a national grassroots disability rights group. The group is marching to send a message to Congress demanding the passage of the Medicaid Community-based Attendant Services and Supports Act (MiCASSA). The proposed legislation would guarantee disabled and older Americans a choice in where they receive their long-term care services and supports, according to ADAPT. Current Medicaid regulations force elderly and disabled citizens into nursing homes, ADAPT charges, because such federally mandated programs aren't allowed to be cut. This means optional programs that allow those people to receive services at home are first on budget cut lists, according to ADAPT. The march began in Philadelphia and culminates in Washington, D.C., at a 20,000 person rally on Capitol Hill. A few minutes before 4 p.m., marchers were near Nazarene campground, where they will spend the night before continuing to Havre de Grace. Teams with 50 tents, 12 port-a-potties and a 350-gallon water tank set up and strike camp each night for the marchers, according to ADAPT spokesperson Bob Kafka. The group also carries a generator to charge power wheelchairs overnight. Monday night will be unusual, because the marchers will have an indoor facility at their disposal, Kafka said. Kafka said most assume elderly and disabled people have to get their services in nursing homes, when they could be getting them at home. Kafka said up to 2 million people in those institutions don't have a real choice when it comes to where they live and receive assistance. He believes MiCASSA is the answer. "We're challenging Congress' leadership," Kafka said of the marchers, "saying this piece of legislation has to be the number-one priority of the 108th Congress." The Maryland Department of Transportation's State Highway Administration, Maryland Transportation Authority, Maryland Transit Administration, Maryland State Police and local police agencies assisted the group, establishing right lane closures on Pulaski Highway to protect the participants. A pollee motor-cade, crash-attenuating truck and arrow board vehicle escorted the marchers. Portions of Route 40 will be affected across the state Sept. 8 until Sept. 16, as the protestors continue toward Washington, D.C. Marchers Monday afternoon were enthusiastic. Daniese McMullin. Powell, 57, of Newark, Del., carried an American flag and a message. "For our people, our home is not nursing homes," she said.
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Aware News FALL 2003 Services for Independent Living, Inc. [Headline] MARCH for MiCASSA [By-line] Guy M. Fisher, Advocacy Program Consultant On September 17, 2003, hundreds of people with disabilities and their families, friends and supporters rallied at the United States Capitol and called on Congress to pass the Medicaid Community-Based Attendant Services and Supports Act (MiCASSA). MiCASSA is a federal bill that would make it easier for people with disabilities to get long-term care services in their homes and communities. If it becomes law, each state would have to phase in a consumer-oriented system of attendant services and supports to be provided in the home, at school or at work. Medicaid beneficiaries eligible for nursing home care could choose instead to use their Medicaid long-term care dollars for these new services in their own homes. The MiCASSA rally was the final step of a journey that began two weeks earlier at the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, PA., when 200 protestors — many of them using wheelchairs left the nation's symbol of freedom on a grueling, 144-mile march to Washington, D C. The "Free Our People" march, sponsored by ADAPT, traveled up to 16 miles a day through pouring rain, scorching heat and all kinds of mechanical breakdowns. The marchers slept in tents and on cots and "dined" on a steady diet of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. "By enduring the obvious discomforts and inconveniences of the march," said ADAPT leaders, the marchers demonstrated their "Undying commitment to all persons, young and old, having the choice AND opportunity to live in the community with the supports and services they need." At several stops, the marchers were greeted by community leaders expressing support for MiCASSA. In Delaware, a state legislator promised to introduce a similar bill in the Delaware General Assembly and U.S. Senator. Joe Biden cheered on the protestors. "This march should show those that oppose us in Congress that you not only have the right to do this march," said Biden, "but the capacity and the gumption to take care of yourselves." By the time they reached Washington, the marchers had been joined by another 300 supporters. They had also received pledges from President George W. Bush and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to meet with ADAPT to discuss MiCASSA. Many prominent advocates and members of Congress addressed the rally on Capitol Hill. Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa, an onginal sponsor of MiCASSA, declared that "it is long past time that people could be in their own homes, not somebody else's nursing home." This is the fourth time that MiCASSA has been considered by Congress and it has never been more important for advocates to get it passed. Less than one third of Medicaid's long-term care spending goes to community-based services and Medicaid continues to treat nursing home coverage as an entitlement while allowing states to provide community-based services as an option. With so many states in fiscal trouble, these optional services are at risk. "States are not allowed to cut federally mandated services, like nursing homes," ADAPT organizer Bob Liston told the Hartford Advocate. "The first on the chopping blocks are the so-called 'optional' services like 'home and community-based' programs." The Free Our People march has created momentum for MiCASSA. The marchers received national media attention and 14 members of Congress have added their support as co-sponsors since the march began on September 3rd. Three of those co-sponsors are Democratic presidential candidates: North Carolina Senator John Edwards, Missouri Representative Dick Gephardt and Cleveland-area Congressman Dennis Kucinich. Keep the momentum for MiCASSA going! Contact your congressional representatives and ask them to support MiCASS (S. 971 in the Senate and H.R. 2032 in the House of Representatives) so that people with disabilities can get the long-term care they need while remaining in their homes and communities. You can call your representatives through the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and you can find the mail and e-mail addresses at the Congress.org website: hhtp://www.congress.org/ Don't forget to follow the progress of MiCASSA and other disability-realted legislation by subscribing to the North Coast disAbility News Source, SIL's weekly e-mail digest of online news articles relevant to disability issues. If you have access to a computer with an internet connection you can subsrcibe to the News Source by sending a blank e-mail message to SIL-News-subscribe@YahooGroups.com or by visiting the News Source home page at: http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/sil-news/
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Volume 20 No. 1 A Publication of ADAPT Winter 2003-2004 [Headline] Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Us Around [Subheading] Gonna Keep on Marching... Marching on to See MiCASSA Pass Why are we doing this? It's because, segregation from our society is wrong. Locking people away because they have a disability is wrong. It's almost like, we get locked away, so, it doesn't cause hurt to somebody else. You know, it hurts them to see us, so let's put us out a sight and out a mind. That's wrong. In America every-body deserves the choice and the right to be free. --Ben Barrett For the 20th Anniversary of ADAPT folks wanted a change. As Monty Python would say "and now for something completely different..." And different it was. Amazing and beautiful. Exhausting and exhilarating. The Free Our People March and Rally was one for the history books. The March went 144 miles from Philadelphia to Washington DC, with a second wave joining us in Baltimore. The point was to focus attention on MiCASSA (S. 971/HR 2032), the Money Following the Person, and on real implementation of the integration guarantee of the Americans with Disabilities Act! [image] [image caption] photo by Tom Olin [text resumes] A city of over 200 people that packed up, moved and unpacked itself every day; that was how several people characterized the Free Our People March. A city with rows of tents with wheelchair accessible 'streets" between, erected in [image] [image caption] photo by Tim Wheat Winter 2003-2004 [text resumes] church parking lots, state police headquarters, and open fields. A city that managed to charge over 80 motorized wheelchairs off a generator every evening so they could make the 10 - 16 miles of marching each day. A city with portable toilets that not only moved from campsite to campsite, but stopped for a lunch break every day too. 200 people traveling by the side of the highway in all kinds of weather with only specified breaks due to traffic control. A city that lost no one despite breakdowns of chairs, messed up catheters and colostomy bags, despite oxygen tank changes and sprained legs and terrible blisters Even Erik von Schmetterling's stroke or a couple of other folks hospital visits could not hold the group down for too long. Dead batteries and broken casters were simply tests to find another way to get on down the road! It was a city with a troubadour, mechanics, engineers, trash collectors, laundry, attendants, divas, an evolving kitchen crew, portable media station, drivers, artists and more. One of the most interesting things about the whole event was all the kinds of folks it took to make it happen, in all the places, with all the talents, all the limitations and enthusiasms. Wild geese and bees were our most constant companions, not counting the relentless traffic that pounded by us every day. Was there a message in the fact that these are creatures that live communally and work together for the good of the group, creatures who take care of one another and each contribute to the support of the others? Perhaps the most telling part was, though we had planned for over a year, over 200 of us were willingly launching ourselves into something we really had no idea what we were getting into Every day brought it's own set of challenges, which we met and dealt with. Trust and commitment to one another made a bond we knew would carry us through. And it did. Weather was not particularly our friend. We started in a tremendous rainstorm with a press conference-- between the Liberty Bell and the Constitution-- right in downtown Philadelphia and in the end we headed out through rain so hard it was literally difficult to see where we were going. In Baltimore too we rallied in a dreary drizzle, and of course in DC though the rally day was lovely, a hurricane loomed over all and shut down the federal government the day were were to visit Congress! Wilmington's Rally was the exception to the rule with a beautiful day. For the most part, when it was sunny the light somehow reflected off the black asphalt of the road and burned into our skin. Sometimes it was so hot folks would literally doze off as we moved along the side of the road! Folks flew in (a few drove) from around the country the day before we started and gathered that evening for a meeting to explain the ogistics. We would rise on a schedule, use the toilets on a schedule, march and take breaks on a schedule and go to bed on a schedule. No one was in love with regimentation, but to make it work we made concessions. When we go to Baltimore a second set of march [image] [image caption] Photo by Tim Wheat [text resumes] ers joined us, and quickly got in the rhythm of it all. The support from the public was overwhelming. All along the march people waved and clapped and stared at this bizarre apparition of hundreds of people of all abilities and disabilities--we even had a couple of athletic types in tow--heading down the highways and byways. They would come up to talk about the issues and were amazed that the bill had any trouble passing, given the logic and importance of the issue. When we stopped at night our hosts would come to visit. Some catered magnificent meals; some let us use their rest rooms (you would be amazed how good a public restroom sink and flush toilet can look!) E-mails and phone calls from across the nation sent support for the March and for MiCASSA! The days of the march each held their own unique events: the church that could not hold us all--even dorm style--the first night (so some used tents), the 16 mile march of the second day, the Rally in Wilmington and the horrible bridge of holes on day 3, camping at the Delaware state troopers' headquarters and the McMullen-Powell family pig roast on the fourth night, the steep hills of Delaware (who knew?) and the incredible Church of the Nazareen camp with it's blocks and blocks of cabins and most hospitable staff and volunteers. The sixth day was highlighted with the shuttle over the Susquehanna River, a tremendous boost from e-mails from around the world that we read that night and the excitement of see other ADAPTers and their friends who brought dinner! Our halfway day was joyfully celebrated with a proclamation of support from Aberdeen City Council President Myra Fender and Council Member Gina Bantum and the Knights of Columbus and St. Francis de Sales Church warmly welcomed us that evening. On the eighth day the steep hills of Maryland felled many chairs but we were able to rejoin each other once we arrived at our field campsite beside the Cowenton Church in Whitemarsh. Next was our fateful night in the skating rink where we went from the fabulous feast (courtesy of the Father Robert of St Elizabeth of Hungary Church and his brother) to the sickening green mist and the incredible engineering feat of hooking up to the generator that night. Day ten our reinforcing new crew of marchers joined us for a wet rally at the Inner Harbor and went on the volunteer fire department and an al fresco dinner courtesy of the local independent living folks. By day 11 who remem-bers where we are or what's up, just keep moving and stay in line! Our biggest trial came on day 12 when a sudden rain storm soaked the chargers and the generator and tremendous effort and personal reserves were required to get even some of the chairs charged in a local fire department. The next day we arrive in DC by hook or by crook - and for some it was pretty damn crook — and were greeted by Capitol Area ADAPT with a homemade feast and a most welcoming church. The great culmination though was coming into downtown DC the next morn- [image] [image caption] photo by Tim Wheat [text resumes] ing to the train station where the 300 Freedom Train Riders and hundreds of others joined us for our last few blocks to the rally site at the park. Entering the park and seeing the thousands gathered there to greet us was a reminder of all that went into make the march happen, both by those on the road and those not on the road with us! The party that night found new folks and old codgers, long missing faces and friends and family members reveling together amid music, pictures, and even a fill-in-your-piece-of-the- ADAPT-history timeline. In Delaware, MiCASSA Co-sponsor Senator Biden joined us for our rally, and in DC Senators Harkin and Spector and Congressmen Davis and Shimkus, the main MiCASSA cosponsors all joined us, pledging added support. We even had Representative Dennis Moore bring his guitar and serenade the crowd with This Land Is Your Land. In Tennessee advocates were so inspired by the march they literally flooded Senator Frist's office with thou-sands of faxes until he agreed to meet with ADAPT and they rallied in Solidarity on September 17. Folks in Jackson MS and Raleigh NC, and St Louis MO held solidarity rallies too. In Chicago op-ed and letters to the editors helped spread the word. The March was to recommit our-selves and any that would join us to the goal of passing MiCASSA, making the Money Follows the Person a reality, and to get real Medicaid reform and Olmstead implementation so that people have a guarantee to be able to choose to live in the community, in their own homes instead of nursing homes or other institutions. In the march when we left Baltimore in another blinding downpour, Anita Cameron lead us in the song 'Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around." Now our challenge is to continue the push! We must push for hearings on MiCASSA by March fo 2004, for passage of the Money Follows the Person at the federal level and state by implementation in the meantime. There are there are [sic] over 350,00 people that even the nursing home industry admits want out, and that does not even address folks in other types of institutions. If there is one lesson learned in ADAPT's last 20 years, it is that things worth fighting for are rarely won in a single round. The energy that went into the march reaped a huge harvest of commitment to these goals, but we must ensure that the harvest is not wasted. [image] [image caption] photo by Tim Wheat
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On September 17, 2003, an estimated 10,000 ADAPT members met in Washington D.C. to advocate for the passage of the landmark legislation, Mi Cassa. ADAPT members from across the nation gathered again to make the case for freeing persons with dis-abilities from institutions. Senators Harkin and Specter once again spoke to the group, pledging their support for the legislation. After the rally, members of ADAPT spread out to visit members of Congress and deliver their message of freedom. The activities were familiar. This is not the first time that ADAPT has been in Washington, but this year was different. Seeking a way to dramatize its message of independence and freedom, ADAPT members met in Philadelphia on September 3, 2003 and marched to Washington. One hundred twenty-five persons began the march. But by the time the marchers reached Washington their ranks had swollen to nearly 500. The march took over a year to plan. Terrence Turner, co-Executive Director of Atlantis, said, "We were like an army. Everything had to be planned in advance. Plans for food, sleeping arrangements, and police escorts needed to be executed. Our planning committee did an inspiring job." The marchers traveled using wheelchairs. They stayed to the streets and highways. Police escorts traveled with them, changing as the group passed from one political jurisdiction to another. Vans, trucks, and trailers accompanied the marchers to carry equipment. Two vehicles carried portable toilets. The group covered from ten to sixteen miles a day. Each day a camp committee went ahead to pitch tents and pre-pare for the night. The marchers slept outdoors all but three nights. Much of the food was provided along the way by well-wishers. Most of these well-wishers were church groups. Weather proved a challenge for the marchers. The group was met the first day with pouring rain. It rained a number of other days as well, but Mr. Turner said that even more uncomfortable were the days when the marchers put on rain gear, anticipating rain, and it did not rain. "The rain gear was like wear-ing sweat suits," he said. One night the group slept in an ice skating rink. While the ice had been removed, the building was damp and cold. An indoor fog blanketed the sleepers causing them to have a very unpleasant night. At one point the group traveled along an interstate high-way. Cars whizzed by at 60 miles an hour. The marchers were forced to travel in single file. Over one hundred wheelchairs formed a line across the Maryland country-side. ADAPT signaled for all to see that persons) with disabilities belong anywhere and can live independently. The marchers traveled through the rolling hills of Maryland. Terrence was one of only two persons who continuously used a manual wheelchair. "You would think that you had reached the top of a hill and discover that you had just reached a little plateau, he said. "A ten mile day in this terrain is a very long day when you're pushing your wheelchair every inch of the way." But he and the others pushed on. Only two persons were forced to leave the march. One person had a stroke and could not return but a second marcher who left the group for health reasons was able to rejoin the march before the group reached Washington. "In spite of the rain and the heat, the hills and the traffic, the uncomfortable sleeping conditions, and the physical challenges, we met each day with a surge of energy that we drew from one another and from our purpose for being there," said Terrence. Each night the marchers sat around their campsite and talked. They got to know one another and drew strength from one anothers commitment to improve the lives of persons with disabilities. The marchers also drew strength from others who they met. The police were courteous and supportive. Drivers honked their horns and waved in solidarity. Local newspapers in towns and cities along the way interviewed the marchers and wrote positive stories. These stories were read to the group in their evening meetings. Other local people provided food and a place for the group o set up camp at night. ADAPT had a chance to tell its story as its members marched to Washington. Persons with disabilities have gone to Washington before, but they have never gone like ADAPT did in September. Never before have several hundred persons using wheelchairs taken to the streets and highways to go to Washington to petition their government. Too many believe that persons with disabilities need to sit on the sidelines of life, watching and waiting, but never getting out on the field to play themselves. The ADAPT marchers brought a message with them to the Congress. That message is, "We don't have to live in nursing homes. We can live in the real world. Won't you help us by changing the laws that make it easier for us to live in an institution than in our communities?" We hope and believe, with the marchers, that the good sense of their message and the strength of their spirit will bring to bare the sweet fruit of freedom. Terrence Turner provided The Colorado Quarterly with the photograms and the first hand experience upon which this story draws. Mr. Turner is the Co-executive Director of The Atlantis Community. A photo journal of the trip can be found on page 23
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Local News Philadelphia & Its Suburbs FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2003 The Philadelphia Inquirer [image] [image caption] On Baltimore Avenue, (from left) Ernest Morrison, Deborah Russel, Peggy Dougherty and Don Locke lead the way. [second image] [image caption] Marion D'Ambrosio visits with Karin Dinavdi during a lunch break for the group D'Ambrosio operates DeSimone's Salad Express, which served as caterer. Inquirer photographs by Michael S. Wirtz [Headline] In solidarity, aiding a cause Yesterday, 120 people from across the United States started on the Free Our People March, a 144-mile trek from Philadelphia to Washington sponsored by ADAPT, a national group focusing on rights for people with disabilities. The group seeks passage of legislation to provide more support services to disabled and older people. [third image] [image caption] Peggy Dougherty of Easton flaunts her American spirit.
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MARYLAND Page 12B Sunday, Sept. 14, 2003 : The Sun in Howard [image] [image caption] CHIAKI KAWAJIRI : SUN STAFF. Almost 200 demonstrators rally in Baltimore during a stop in their two-week trek from Philadelphia to Washington to build support for Medicaid funding for home care of the disabled. [Headline] Backers of home care for disabled stage a rally at the Inner Harbor [Subheading] Demonstrators call for Medicaid funding By ALEC MACGILLIS SUN STAFF Close to 200 protesters, most of them in wheelchairs held a noon rally yesterday at the Inner Harbor on their two-week odyssey from Philadelphia to Washington to support disabled people who want to live at home rather than in nursing homes. The protesters, drawn from across the country, are traveling 144 miles from Philadelphia to Capitol Hill to build support for the Medicaid Community-Based Attendant Services and Supports Act, federal legislation that would require Medicaid to pay for home attendant care so that disabled people aren't unnecessarily forced into nursing homes. Many states provide some' Medicaid funding for home care services but have been cutting the support during the fiscal crunch, lengthening the waiting lists for disabled people hoping to leave nursing homes. Advocates for home care say it costs less per person than nursing home care, but the legislation requiring the funding of home attendants has stalled since being introduced in 1997, thanks partly to opposition from the nursing home industry and from governors who say the legislation would cost too much. Yesterday, poncho-covered protesters gathered at the plaza at Pratt and Light streets to argue for the legislation on the principle of human freedom: It is wrong, they said, to ware-house people who, with help, could live in their own homes. "We sit here in Baltimore, where Francis Scott Key wrote of the 'land of the free and home of the brave,' and we demand this freedom," said Barbara Toomer, a protester in her 70s from Salt Lake City who uses a wheel-chair because of a spinal-cord injury. The trek organized by a dis-abled-rights group called ADAPT, or American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today — involves dozens of wheelchairs, some of them powered manually, 10 vans, four trucks, 12 portable toilets, 50 tents and 350 gallons of water. On Friday night, the protesters camped in Patterson Park. Terrence Turner, 46, came from Denver to. take part in the trip. Turner, who lost his legs after a 1986 shooting in Detroit, said he believes strongly in keeping the disabled out of nursing homes even though he's never had to stay in one. "It's like taking a fish out of water Eventually, you die," said Turner, who was using a manual wheelchair. Ben Barrett, 45, came from northern Wisconsin for the trek because he's seen how much better off fellow disabled people in his county are after being re-leased from nursing homes into care at their own homes. "Congress guarantees your right to live in an institution but not the right to live in your own home," said Barrett, who has been in a wheelchair since being hit by a freight train eight years ago.
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Delaware County Daily Times Friday September 5, 2003 5 [Headline] Their cause is marching on [image] [image caption] More than 120 Disability Rights Advocates marched 10 miles from Philadelphia to Glenolden yesterday, en route to Washington, D.C. Above, Raymond Jones, right, pets Inky, a service dog belonging to Daniese McMullin-Powell at First Presbyterian Church in Glenolden, where the group camped on the first leg of its journey. Times staff/ Paula E. Doyle
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[left side margin images of faces, without any captions] [Headline] FREE OUR PEOPLE MARCH & RALLY Did you know that if you become disabled and need help, most of the time your only choice is to go to a nursing home? Didja know people with all kinds of disabilities (even people who use ventilators) live in their own homes and get services there? Didja know the main problem is federal Medicaid rules that keep services focused on institutions? And the nursing home lobbyists work hard to keep it that way too! MiCASSA— the Medicaid Community Attendant Services and Supports Act will solve the problem! Many of us marching were once stuck in a nursing home or other institution, or have been threatened with it. 13 years ago when we started this campaign we knew this could work and people are unnecessarily institutionalized in nursing homes and similar places. Since then, thousands of people have moved from institutions like nursing homes, and proven time and again it can be done! BUT, over 2 million people are still stuck, many want out but don't have that choice. Help us make MiCASSA a reality!