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صفحه اصلی / آلبومها / Orlando, fall 1991 29
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Photo: ADAPT members sit in a group facing the Orlando Convention Center. On the front of the building is a large sign reading "Welcome AHCA American Health Care Association. The two people closest to the camera have signs on the backs of their wheelchairs; one reads: Disabled and proud to live in my own home, the other: A nursing home is not a home to me. Between the protesters and the building is a wall of police barricades with offices spaced along them chatting together. [Brooke ___ sits with a yellow ADAPT back pack, beside her ius Loretta Dufriend, behind her with the nursing home sign is Larry Ruiz. Standing next to Loretta is Carl Gage; Standing at the front in a white shirt is Bill Scarborough. ]
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Orlando Sentinel Weds October 9, 1991 Photo by Joe Burbank/Sentinel: Elizabeth Dole standing at a podium smiling broadly, and beind her on a huge screen is a reversed picture of her smiling. Caption reads: Like Elizabeth Dole, ADAPT members had their say at civic center. Title: Protesters testify outside convention by Mary Brooks, of the Sentinel Staff Disabled activists talked of being beaten and coerced into abortion as they continued their protest Tuesday outside a convention of the nursing home industry. While about 100 members of ADAPT — Americans Disabled for Attendant Programs -— gave testimonials outside the Orange County Convention and Civic Center, 73 of their colleagues who had been arrested in protests Sunday and Monday were preparing to be released early from the Orange County Jail. Two of the protesters were released Monday night. The group has been demonstrating before the annual convention of the American Health Care Association, which represents nursing home operators. ADAPT members say they want a fourth of the $23 billion Medicaid is spending on nursing homes and other institutions to go toward programs so people can get the help they need at home. Some of the protesters — many disabled by cerebral palsy or auto wrecks -— related the degradation they said they experienced in health institutions. Perhaps the most moving story came from Theresa Monroe, 30, of Atlanta, who said she was coerced into having an abortion when she was five months pregnant. “I was 18 and I fell in love and got pregnant. They said the baby wouldn’t be ‘right’ and that I had to have an abortion. I didn’t know what an abortion was," said Monroe, who spent four years in an institution. The protesters rallied in front of the Peabody Hotel and the convention center on International Drive. By 7 p.m., all of the protesters had been released from jail. They had said they would not post bail that had been set at $1,000 apiece, and jail officials had said they would not be released until Friday. But attorneys for ADAPT reached an agreement with Judge Jose Rodriguez to release the protesters for time served, as long as they agreed not to try to bar the entrances of the convention. Also, those who could afford to must pay $100 within 90 days to help cover the costs of additional law enforcement. The day's convention activities started quietly with a speech by Elizabeth Dole, president of the American National Red Cross. Deputies had expected a conflict since Dole had refused to meet with ADAPT when she was U.S. Secretary of Transportation, but protesters did not arrive until after she finished. Dole told convention-goers that America’s graying population is prompting a new set of medical challenges, especially for people in need of long-term care.
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The Orlando Sentinel The best newspaper in Florida Photo by John Raoux/Sentinel: At the corner of a driveway two helmeted sheriff's officers on motor cycles face off with a woman [Stephanie Thomas] in a manual wheelchair. Her mop of hair is blown around her head, and she is holding her push rims mid-push. Catpition reads: Protest continues - Stephanie Thomas, an activist for the disabled, squares off Tuesday with Orange County deputy sheriffs as she tries to take her wheelchair onto International Drive. Story, B-3.
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The Orlando Sentinel, Thursday October 10, 1991 the best newspaper in Florida PHOTO by Phelan M Ebenhack/Sentinel: Three people (left to right: Frank Lozano, Bunnie Andrews? and Sue Davis) are standing in front of a wall. On the wall a cross with "Nursing Homes Kill" written on it is partially visable, as is the ADAPT flag (an American Flag with the stars arranged to form the wheelchair/access logo). The three are lifting up an old fashioned folding E & J manual wheelchair to hang it on the cross. Frank, who is blind and wears a headband and T-shirt with ADAPT on them, has his hand raised. Caption reads: Frank Lozano and Bunnie Andrews, both of Colorado Springs, and Sue Davis of Louisville, Ky., chain a wheelchair to a cross marked ‘Nursing Homes Kill.‘ Title: Disabled saw their message on many faces by Sharon McBreen of the Sentinel Staff Protesters say they made their message clear this week after 250 activists in wheelchairs converged on Orlando. “It’s almost as though they never felt it before we've gotten in their faces,” Diane Coleman said. “You can feel the impact of that. You can see it in their eyes." The members of ADAPT — Americans Disabled for Attendant Programs Today — carried a message to the American Health Care Association, which attracted 3,500 delegates to a convention this week at the Peabody Hotel. ADAPT membels want an alternative to nursing home care. And they want to live at home. During the convention, which ends today, ADAPT members tried to block the Peabody’s doors with their bodies and wheelchairs. Police arrested 75 protesters on trespassing charges. The group wants a fourth of the $23 billion Medicaid spends on nursing homes and other institutions transferred to at-home care. “We need to reach the `rank`-and-file members of AHCA and the American public," Coleman of Tennessee said at a Wednesday news conference. At least one convention delegate said he wanted to hear more, she said. Nursing home association representatives have asked ADAPT members to meet with them. But what the activists really want is a national policy giving the disabled a choice, said Mark Johnson of Atlanta. Johnson said the nursing home industry doesn't want to allow the disabled to live at home, because it would lose out on the Medicaid money they receive. Wednesday night's news conference had to be moved from the front of the Orange County Convention and Civic Center to a room in the Clarion Plaza Hotel because police threatened to arrest them, one of the organizers said. Orange County sheriff's spokesman Doug Sarubbi denied that. He said an agreement reached with the judge who released the protesters from jail prohibited them from trespassing on Peabody Hotel property. Sarubbi said the Sheriff's Office was tabulating the time and money — estimated at least $100,000 —- it spent on the protest.
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The Orlando Sentinel, Thursday, October 17, 1991 ORS [Headline] ADAPT protesters' firm stance did alI disabled people proud Last week,' disabled protesters disrupted the Southern chard of Orlando, "The" City Beautiful." Some called the protesters derelicts, others said they were nothing more than a ragtag bunch. I call them soldiers. They are activists in a civil rights movement, and the banner they, fight under is ADAPT (American Disabled for Attendants Programs Today.) Their action is for freedom of choice for people with disabilities. They believe that those who are not completely independent (including those disabled by age) should have the right to stay in their homes with the help of an attendant -- a non-medical helper who provides personal care at the disabled person's direction. ADAPT members estimate that millions of people are in nursing homes rather than living independently That's because nursing homes have always been the sole solution to helping people who were not totally self-sufficient. ADAPT's forces want to change that. Some of the disabled activists I met during the four days of protests in Orlando were not pretty. Others were beautiful and handsome and could have been movie stars. Most were severely disabled. Some had able-bodied helpers, without whose assistance the disabled protesters could not have gotten out of bed in the morning. Many had bodies that bore witness to the power of disease or accident. Some were paralyzed. A few struggled to get each word out, fighting against the problems that short-circuited their voices and limbs. They were men and women, old and young, black and white, rich and poor. Despite their disabilities, they possessed the same determination and diligence to fight for freedom that Americans have traditionally given their lives for. I thought of patriots at Valley Forge, Martin Luther King Jr. and the yellow-ribbon heroes of Desert Storm. I smiled at how different, yet how similar, all these activists are. One woman said the disabled protesters were just trying to get attention and they had nothing else to do. As a disabled person, I know her argument is false. Severely disabled people usually attract far more attention than they want or deserve. And most disabled people keep very busy just trying to survive. Someone else said that instead of disrupting the peace, the activists should negotiate and work in committees to make decisions about home care and other important issues. I will admit that as a lifelong advocate for people with disabilities the committee [image] [image caption] Beverly Chapman. Accessing Life approach always made sense to me. I felt that the way to create change was to learn the system and use it. And I have done that many times. Sometimes it works. Other times it doesn't. Fifteen years ago, lift-equipped public transportation was a big issue disabled people fought for. I sat on advisory committees with other disabled and able-bodied people. We deliberated the pros and cons of making transit buses accessible to people with disabilities. Ultimately we recommended the local transit authority purchase all new buses with lifts. The Orlando City Council voted that city money could be used only to buy buses with lifts. But despite that, transit officials found a way to order buses without equipment to help disabled travelers. In that case, we used the system. And even though we won battles, we lost the war. That experience taught me that too often committee decisions aren't followed because they don't conform to the wishes of those in power. Perhaps ADAPT's methods make some of us uncomfortable. And perhaps in a perfect world, the needs of disadvantaged people would be met, simply because all Americans have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But the members of ADAPT by their existence, demonstrate that this is not a perfect world. And they follow their consciences to confrontation because they believe in their cause. The late Robert Kennedy often often quoted Dante when he said, "The hottest places in hell are reserved for people who at times of adversity sit on the sidelines and watch." If that's true, some day the members of ADAPT may look down on all of us from a heavenly place, comfortably entrenched with the rest of humanity's heroes.
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New York Times, National, Thursday October 10.1991 Title: Militant Advocates for Disabled Revel in Their Roles as Agitators by Steven A. Holmes, special to the New York Times [compare with ADAPT 673] Boxed text: Forcefully trying to change images of the nation’s disabled. ORLANDO, Fla., Oct. 6 — The melee‘ at a meeting of nursing home representatives here was, in many ways, a typical for the demonstrators: After smashing their wheelchairs into police barricades and blocking a hotel entrance, 73 of them were arrested, creatmg front page headlines and a successful day's work for Adapt, the militant advocacy group for the disabled. The aim of the action today at the Peabody Hotel in this resort city was to focus attention on the organization's call to divert Federal money from nursing homes to a form of in-home care. But the means the group uses, like Sunday's chaotic demonstration, have often exasperated its allies as much as its adversaries. But even those who criticize Adapt acknowledge that the searing images of people with physical limitations engaging in civil disobedience often succeed in shattering stereotypes of how meek and pliant “cripples” are supposed to act, stereotypes often held by many disabled people themselves. “Adapt is about the issue," said Mary Johnson, editor of the Disability Rag, a weekly magazine that is devoted to disability issues. “But it is also about showing you that though you are disabled you have power already. For people who feel they don't have any power, who are often dependent, that is such a liberation." The Denver-based group's style has drawn its share of criticism from other advocates for the disabled. These critics note that the group played little part in the negotiations that led to the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act and that their methods had often antagonized allies in the stniggle. “I think they do get attention," said a Washington-based disabled advocate who asked not to be identified. “But that's true when they are playing to an audience that is not politically sawy. For people out in Middle America, sitting in front of the TV, seeing people in wheelchairs demonstrating is something new. But to folks in Washington who are used to sit-ins, it's passe." [Subheading] An Effective Weapon But leaders of Adapt, which originally stood for Americans Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation, say it is `groups` like theirs that push others to press forcefully ior expanded rights for the disabled. “l think that even for the people with disabilities who don't participate directly in Adapt, we give them heart," said Diane Coleman, an Adapt organizer from Tennessee. And even those who sometimes criticize Adapt acknowledge that it is an eiiective weapon. lt is a role Adapt readily takes on. "We make all the other `groups` seem real rational," said Mike Auberger, one of Adapt’s founders. The group was begun in I983 in Denver by people who worked to persuade the city to make all local buses accessible to people in wheelchairs. Over the next few years they held protests over the issue of accessible public transportation in Cincinnati, St. Louis, Phoenix; Detroit and Atlanta. In addition to picketing, the protesters often would lock their wheelchairs together in front of city buses or chain themselves to a bus’s bumper. Early on, Adapt made a prime target the American Public Transit Association, a group representing mass transit systems. The protesters disrupted meetings and harassed officials of the group. “You have to have a bad guy in political organizing, somebody you can go after," said Mr. Auberger. These days that role is filled by the nursing home industry and Louis W. Sullivan, Secretary of Health and Human Services. After Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act last year, requiring that all new buses be equipped with hydraulic lifts for people in wheelchairs, Adapt began protesting for Federal subsidies for personal attendants, individuals hired by those with physical impairments to help them with basic everyday needs. Adapt wants 25 percent of the more than $20 billion paid to nursing home operators under the Medicaid program to be diverted from nursing homes to help the disabled pay for personal attendants. Though many mainstream proponents of help for the disabled have endorsed the goal of government subsidies for attendants, the diversion of funds sought by Adapt is opposed by the American Health Care Association, the trade group for nursing homes, and by the Bush Administration. As a result, Adapt has spent the last few months harassing the nursing home association and “Mr. Sullivan. This spring they blocked his car during a visit to Chicago and heckled him in a speech in Washington. in August, a handful of Adapt members rolled their wheelchairs along side Mr. Sullivan and harangued him as he took part in a fitness walk on Martha's Vineyard. Whether such methods will achieve Adapt‘s stated goals is uncertain. But leaders of the group say that when they first began to put pressure on the public transportation industry, no one felt their methods would bear fruit. "You have to give complete and utter credit for that to Adapt," said Evan Kemp, Jr., the head of e Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
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[Headline] Disabled Group Protests Disrupt AHCA Meetings by Allen Hogg A spokeswoman for the American Health Care Association (AHCA) charged that an organization for people with disabilities demonstrating at its meetings seems to have as its goal "creating confusion and getting publicity. An organizer of American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today (ADAPT) said she is half right. ADAPT co-founder Mike Auberger acknowledged that publicizing a cause is a primary reason why members of his group have been protesting at AHCA meetings around the country. These protests, which have been taking place throughout 1991, reached a peak at AHCA's annual meeting in Orlando, FL, in early October. Seventy-six of the more than 300 ADAPT members who went to the Orange County Convention Center were jailed for three days after blocking facility entrances, chaining themselves together by the neck, carrying signs and shouting slogans. Demonstrations such as this, said Auberger, result in "a lot of media attention and a lot of people all of a sudden understanding the issue." The issue, as Auberger presents it, is that too much federal money is being spent on long-term care at nursing homes, and not enough for health care provided at home. "We don't want to keep funding nursing homes," he said. "We want to redirect 25 percent of the nursing home Medicaid budget into personal assistant programs." ADAPT, which was founded in 1983, had been called Americans Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation while lobbying for the Americans with Disabilities Act. It adopted its new title after that law was passed. "We moved to this issue because it's probably the single largest issue right now for people with disabilities," Auberger said. He expressed his belief, however, that the redirection of resources ADAPT is advocating would give all taxpayers more bang for their bucks. "Care can pretty typically be pro-vided in the home with a higher level of quality and more economically," he said. "I don't know of anybody that wants to go to a nursing home. Most people have a sense that this is where you go to die." AHCA vice president of public relations Linda Keegan, whose group represents 10,000 non-profit and for-profit nursing homes, of course disagrees. According to Keegan, taking money from nursing homes is hardly a way to deal with "a dramatically expanding population in need of long-term care." "To assume that everybody in a nursing home could be better cared for at home is just unrealistic," she said. "We make choices available." Keegan said it's particularly unfortunate that ADAPT protests disrupt AHCA meetings at which the group's members are trying to learn how to offer better care. "Any deterrent to people trying to get an education is a shame," she commented. In order to quell the protests, AHCA has had meetings with ADAPT representatives several times over the past year at which AHCA has attempted to reach a compromise with the protestors. But to Keegan, ADAPT leaders have seemed uninterested in putting together a position that might lead to real public policy change. "I'm not sure that was ever their objective," she said. Auberger countered that ADAPT does want public policy change, and would be glad to work with AHCA -- if that group agreed that less federal funding should be given to nursing homes. "If they were to support the issue that would be great," he said. In the meantime, he sees little hope of ADAPT members having the clout in Washington that professional lobbyists do. "Grassroots disability people can't afford to pay for lobbying," he commented. Thus the protests at AHCA meetings will continue in the hopes of getting media attention and swaying public support. Auberger said plans to demonstrate at the group's October 1992 meeting in San Francisco are already underway. "When we get to the final end, we'll be victorious," he vowed.
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A-18 The Orlando Sentinel, Thursday, October 10, 1991 The Orlando Sentinel FOUNDED 1876 633 N. ORANGE AVE., ORLANDO, FLA. 32801-1349 407 420-5000 HAROLD R. LIFVENDAHL, President and Publisher L JOHN HAILE JR. Vice President and Editor • STEPHEN R. VAUGHN, Executive Editor WILLIAM B. DUNN, Managing Editor JANE E. HEALY, Associate Editor JAMES P. TONER, Associate Managing Editor MANNING PYNN, Associate Managing Editor • Deputy Managing Editors MICHAEL W. BALES GEORGE C. BIGGERS III STEVEN L. DOYLE DANA S. EAGLES [Headline] Get realistic about Medicaid Disabled activists attracted considerable attention this week in Orlando with their attempts to disrupt a convention of nursing home operators. They, in turn, countered with slick press packages and media briefings. How inane did the rhetoric get? Well, the disabled called for an end to all nursing homes. And conventioneers painted ridiculously rosy pictures of life in a nursing home and criticized the protesters for refusing to negotiate with them on Medicaid spending. How absurd. The nursing home lobby may be powerful, but it is still the job of government officials to negotiate Medicaid spending. And that's where these demonstrations should have been directed a lawmakers. For despite all the grandstanding this week, both have legitimate concerns that Mate and federal leaders need to address. Nursing home operators, for example, are right to demand that loopholes in Medicaid eligibility be tightened so that more tax dollars can be spent to care for those who truly need it. As for the disabled, they certainly have a worthwhile cause in fighting for cost-effective assistance programs that can help them stay at home instead of in government-funded nursing home beds. Clearly, the Medicaid system is headed for collapse if lawmakers don't start adopting more innovative means to contain sky-rocketing health care costs. Spirited debate and rational ideas are needed to help pull America from the brink of this crisis. Enough rhetoric. Let's all focus on real issues and reasonable answers. [Headline] Job well done Despite the madness and mayhem at the convention center, two organizations are to be commended for the way they conducted themselves this week: The Orange County jail and the sheriffs office. Both groups carefully planned and pre-pared themselves for handling the disabled protesters. Because deputies studied previous protests, they were able to minimize illegal disruptions. More important, they underwent special training and added extra staff and equipment so that the disabled could be properly aired for while in their custody. Looks like a job well done.
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The Socialist November 1991 [Headline] Campaigning From Jail By J. Quinn, Socialist Party Candidate for President Shortly before I flew to Florida on the afternoon of October 4, I received by first printed campaign literature, some palm cards with Bill Edwards' and my name on them along with some highlights of the 1992 Socialist Party platform. By the afternoon of October 6, I had joined more than seventy demonstrators for the rights of the disabled in the Orange County, Fla., jail, where we stayed for the next three days. Thus I joined the grand tradition of Eugene V. Debs, who spent his entire 1920 campaign in Atlanta Prison for his opposition to World War I, and of Norman Thomas, who was jailed during his 1936 campaign for helping CIO organizers fight for free speech in Boss Frank Hague's Jersey City. It is tradition I would rather honor in the breach than in observance, but sometimes a candidate has no choice. The police arrested me for trespass just outside the front door of the Peabody Hotel in Orlando. I was with nearly 300 other members of ADAPT, American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today, who were trying to present our views to members of the American Health Care Association staying at the hotel. AHCA is the lobbying group for the big nursing home chains, which have become enormously profitable since the enactment of Medicare legislation in 1965. AHCA is currently suing Louis Sullivan, Bush' secretary of health and human services, to get more money distributed through the states to nursing homes in order to warehouse more disabled and elderly persons. [image] [image caption] Orlando police arresting a disability activist. Photo by Tom Olin [text cut off] 1.6 million severely disabled people can live independently at home, work-ing at whatever jobs are within their capacity, and providing pay for the family members and friends who are their primary care givers. AHCA and the Bush administration have no use for programs which would interfere with the publicly-funded private profits of the nursing homes. More than half the ADAPT members in Orlando were attending their first public protest. They are a politically varied group. Some are still grateful to Bush for signing the Americans with Disabilities Act last year, which climaxed a battle for accessible public transportation and access to buildings. Of course Bush signed it reluctantly, and his predecessor Reagan worked very hard to prevent its passage. It is ADAPT and similar militants who deserve credit for the act. The first demonstrations against inaccessible buses began in 1978 in Denver, where ADAPT is still centered. Some of you may recall the article I wrote for The Socialist about the deaf-blind and wheelchair-bound Socialist Dennis Schreiber and his Chicago group, Dis-abled Americans Rally for Equality. DARE and other groups of disabled led off the 20th anniversary March on Washington in 1983 at the invitation of Coretta King. Dennis and several comrades from that march were with me in Orlando, continuing the militant Socialist tradition of Helen Keller. Most of the ADAPT members liked the Socialist platform highlights I showed them. We are, of course, for equal rights regardless of disability, for a complete socialized health care system, and for a restructured housing industry which would make it easy to modify living space for the disabled. Our foreign policy planks are appeal-ing to those who became disabled while fighting senseless wars to protect foreign profits. Although anyone can suddenly find themselves in the ranks of the disabled, the poor and disadvantaged are disproportionately victims of industrial accidents, random violence, a deteriorating environment, and preventible disease. Unlike the reforms advocated by the major parties in order to stifle dissent, our demands are in-solubly linked and interdependent be-cause of our basic socialist message. Perhaps a few of those I talked to are beginning to understand that. Nothing radicalizes a group faster than a brutal and stupid opponent, and we had that in Orlando. The police bugged our meeting rooms, studied tapes of previous ADAPT demonstrations so that they would know which leaders to arrest, and tried to arrest as many able-bodied attendants as possible in order to immobilize the rest of the group. ACHA devoted five out of six hand-outs in their press kit to attacks on us, nearly all of them lies. Orlando has become the fastest growing metropolitan area in the country through the tourist and convention business engendered since the opening of Disney World in 1970, and the chamber of commerce was obviously leaning on the police to see that AHCA had an incident-free convention. This conspiracy did not succeed. Our arrests made for some of the most spectacular television since Bull Connor's, Birmingham. A vigil, of our comrades continued outside the jail for the entire time that we were inside. Demonstrations outside the AHCA meetings in the Orange County Convention Center also continued. We were released after three days ready to demonstrate again. A court order threatening arrest for any of us who stepped outside our hotel stopped our last attempt to reach the AHCA delegates who were meeting with their legislative friends, but we were able to show our symbol of a wheelchair chained on a cross to a press conference anyhow. The jail was unequipped to handle so many disabled persons. It took them 14 hours to process us. The over-crowded women's section never had enough bottom bunks. Needed medical treatments were unavailable or behind schedule. Guards and trustees bent the rules for us, allowing me writing materials and the use of my cane, for instance, but even the jailers most ashamed of themselves were unable to revolt against the system of which they were a part. We were given no chance in court to defend our actions. The judge allowed us to plead no contest, sentenced us to time served plus $100 court costs apiece, and warned us not to be outside agitators again in his jurisdiction. This jailing was nowhere near so rough as some of those I endured in the South during the civil rights movement of the 1960s, and it made a spectacular opening for the 1992 campaign, but it seemed downright unfair for me to be jailed while George Bush, who was in Orlando the week before, got to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Disney World by shaking hands with Mickey Mouse. Of course he and Quayle look more natural doing that sort of thing than Bill Edwards, my running mate, and I do.
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The Appalachian Reader Regional News [image] [image caption] Tennessee ADAPT organizer and activist Diane Coleman helps block the entrance to an Orlando hotel where nursing home representatives are meeting. [Headline] Tennessee activists travel to Orlando to protest institutionalizing of disabled Members of ADAPT of Tennessee (Americans Disabled for Attendant Programs Today), along with ADAPT activists from around the country, descended on Orlando, Florida, during the second week in October to protest the warehousing of many of their fellow disabled citizens in nursing homes. The protests, at the hotel where the American Health Care Association was meeting, were held to call attention to the fact that, while millions of dollars are spent each year to institutionalize disabled people, almost nothing is spent to provide attendant services that could enable those people to stay at home in the community, with their families and friends. More than 200 members of ADAPT blocked entrances to the hotel on several different occasions during the week, and many were arrested and jailed. Inside, representatives of most of the nation's nursing homes met to learn how to run them better. Outside, activists insisted that if even one quarter of the money spent by Medicaid on nursing home care were re-channelled into attendant services, thousands of disabled people could be released from the homes' restrictive and often humiliating care. For more information on the actions, or about ADAPT of Tennessee, contact Diane Olin at 1478 Stayton Road, Cumberland Furnace, Tennessee 37051 or call (615) 789-5236.
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NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 1991 DISCLOSURE/5 NEIGHBORHOOD BY NEIGHBORHOOD! [Headline] ADAPT Hits Nursing "Home" Lobby in Orlando ORLANDO, FL.--When Health and Human Services Secretary Luis Sullivan refuses to meet with you, what do you do? If you are an ADAPT (American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today) activist you take your grievance from the public to the private sector. From Sunday October 6th. to Thursday October 10th. 450 ADAPT activists from 25 states converged on the Annual Convention of the American Health Care Association (AHCA), the nation's largest nursing home lobby. The lack of a national policy to fund attendant home care services for people with disabilities is ADAPT's issue. ADAPT was targeting the AHCA directly with their proposal to redirect a minimum 25% of Medicaid's $23 billion budget to establish a national program of community-based attendant home care. ADAPT targeted the AHCA because of HHS Secretary Louis Sullivan's refusal to meet with ADAPT representatives to work out a comprehensive attendant home care program ADAPT's grievance to the AHCA is that its lobbying on behalf of the nursing "home" industry serves to keep disabled citizens that would be able to live in a home environment trapped in an institutional environment. A disproportionally larger share of the Medicaid budget goes to nursing homes instead of community-based programs such as attendant home care. "The AHCA represents 95% of the 10,000 nursing homes in the U.S. Together, these institutions collect 6C% of their income from Medicaid. They end up making a profit from people's disabilities," explains Mike Auberger, with Denver ADAPT. Until Louis "Dr. NO" (nicknamed because of his continuing refusal to meet with ADAPT) Sullivan makes time to meet with disabled citizens, ADAPT will continue to battle the nursing home industry on their own. Auberger continues, "These people are not cattle that you can charge so much for. We'd like to get rid of the profiteering and instead provide a creative humane system in people's homes." ADAPT activists were attempting to block the entrances to Orlando's Peabody Hotel & Convention Center with their wheelchairs when the Orlando Police Department intervened. The OPD had busses equipped with lifts brought in to arrest any demonstrator that attempted to block the en-trances to the convention center. And arrested they were. On Sunday 73 ADAPT activists were arrested and imprisoned in accessible cells. Most were arrested for attempting to block the entrances to the convention center, however many were [boxed text] "The money should follow the people. When it comes to nursing homes, the people want out Attendant home care is the solution," Mark Jackson, Atlanta ADAPT. [image] [image caption] In lieu of HHS Secretary Luis "Dr. NO" Sullivan, ADAPT activists march to the Orlando convention center to challenge the nursing "home" industry lobby. (Photo by Tom Olin) [text resumes] also arrested for blocking the arrival and departure of the lift-equipped buses. The activists, many of which are low-income, refused to post the $1,000 bail and were finally released on Friday. By blocking the door and refusing to pay the bail, the activists were illustrating to the convention-goers the plight of residents trapped in the almost prison-like conditions in nursing homes. The demonstrations and the subsequent arrests brought the issue of attendant home care to the forefront of the nursing home industry and the general public. Mark Jackson, with Atlanta ADAPT, described the media situation. "Every time we do an action in a new city, we get more people involved. This was the first time ADAPT hit Florida. Everyone in the general public can relate to nursing homes, they know someone, family or friend, that has been put in a nursing home. These people can relate to the fact that people don't want to be institutionalized." Auberger agrees, "There are 2 million people in Orlando that now under-stand the issue. This is a population that has an opinion, and that makes a difference." The attendant home care issue is actually very simple according to ADAPT. A disproportionate amount of the budget for disabled citizen's services goes to funding the nursing home industry instead of attendant health care. For every person you can [text cuts off] to in a nursing "home", you can provide attendant home care for two in the community. Attendant home care is a cost effective way of providing disabled citizens with a stable home environment, one with dignity, instead of forcing them them to languish in a nursing "home". According to ADAPT, there are 1.6 million disabled citizens that remain "imprisoned" in the nursing "home" system that could be living fuller lives in their own homes. The fundamental debate centers on the quality of life for disabled people. Quality of life is higher for those who remain at home, with an attendant assisting them with household maintenance. Nursing "homes" resemble prisons, in numerous ways, most importantly in that residents do not have control over their own lives, in terms of eating, sleeping, recreation, etc. It is this lack of control that damages the self-esteem, dignity, and reduces the quality of life for the disabled. Thousands of people with disabilities, old and young, are locked away in institutions and nursing homes or trapped at home because no effective community options exist. For thousands of other people with disabilities, the fear of being placed in a nursing home or some other institution is an everyday reality. It doesn't matter the age or disability, race or sex, whether employed or not, institutions for many are the only option. "The AHCA says that we don't want to negotiate, that we don't want to meet. Well, ADAPT is not going to have a meeting for the sake of having a meeting. We sent them our '25%' proposal, and we gave them a resolution to vote on at their convention. They refused to discuss either one. Until they are willing to sit down at the table and hold a serious discussion on our proposals or their own alternative, we're going to keep the heat on," maintains Jackson. ADAPT maintains that the nursing "home" industry has too much influence over how services are delivered, Disabled people are treated like commodities by a corporate nursing "home industry that is more concerned with profit than need. There is an institutional bias in most privately and publicly funded programs. The majority of funding is being spent for nursing homes and other institutions because of the influence of the American Health Care Association and other lobbying groups. "When you take a look at the budget to provide long-term services to the disabled community...most of the money goes to institutions. Why is that? The nursing 'home' lobby is very powerful, and that pressure keeps the money flowing into the nursing 'home' industry. People are forced to follow. the money, and we want this to change. The money should follow the people, and the people want out," concludes Auberger. ADAPT pledges to continue to demonstrate for attendant home care until all of the disabled citizens that can be removed from the oppressive nursing "home" industry are returned to their homes and provided with attendant home care. ADAPT will also continue to press HHS Secretary Sullivan for a meeting to present their "25%" attendant home care proposal.
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The Orlando Sentinel, Saturday, September 7, 1991 Title: Disabled plan to demonstrate at convention The Orange Sheriffs Office is preparing for a showdown when nursing home operators and activists in wheelchairs show up next month. By Christopher Quinn of the Sentinel Staff The stage has been set for a wild showdown next month in Orlando among nursing home operators, deputy sheriffs and hundreds of wheelchair-bound protesters, some on respirators. The activists, whose tactics include chaining themselves to buildings to halt conventions, want fewer people kept in nursing homes and more money devoted to caring for the disabled at home. They are members of Denver-based American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today, or ADAPT. They plan to demonstrate at next month’s convention of the American Health Care Association at the Orange County‘ Convention and Civic Center. The association represents nursing home operators. If ADAPT members break the law during their protests — as they have in cities across the country — the Orange County Sheriff's Office plans to arrest them, possibly filling the county jail with people who require medical help. “Their aim is to be arrested," said Sgt. Jon Swanson, head of the Sheriffs Office intelligence unit. “Their whole tactic is confrontation.” ‘lt’s going to cost a lot of taxpayer money’ The Sheriff's Office will have to pay overtime to keep crowd and riot control squads on hand 24 hours a day during the four-day convention that begins Oct 6. “It's going to cost a lot of money, a lot of taxpayer money,“ Swanson said. An ADAPT newsletter about the planned protest says "Mickey Mouse and AHCA will never be the same after ADAPT travels to the tourist capital of the US." The newsletter boasts of how the group disrupted a speech by Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan earlier this year. Barbara Guthrie, an ADAPT organizer, said in an interview Friday that members are non-violent people willing to go to jail for their beliefs. “We'll push for arrest" she said. "There's thousands of people in nursing homes that don't need to be there.” Guthrie said ADAPT’s goal is for Medicaid to redirect 25 percent of its $23 billion nursing home budget to home care for the disabled. Guthrie-said she is confined to a wheelchair but is able to live at home because she gets a little help day getting dressed. Linda Keegan, a vice president for the nursing home association, said ADAPT does not seem interested in compromise. “What they're looking for is attention," Keegan said, adding that her group has met with ADAPT leaders twice this year to map out an agreement but that ADAPT continued to protest at meetings. “I really don’t believe what they’re looking for is to work anything out!" Keegan said the association's immediate concern is safety at the convention. She said she would not be surprised if ADAPT tried to block all the entrances at the mammoth building. They're pretty good," she said. Most of the 3,500 people attending the convention will stay at the Peabody Hotel across from the convention center on south International Drive. Swanson said ADAPT has reserved 80 rooms at the Clarion Plaza Hotel at the Convention Center just up the street. The group expects more than 300 members. In cities across the country ADAPT has blocked meetings, disrupted meetings and shut down offices as it sought to reach its goals. Last May in Washington, activists— more than 100 in wheelchairs — blocked entrances to the headquarters of the Health and Human Services Department to protest nursing homes. Some ADAPT members discarded their wheelchairs and crutches and tried to get past a police line securing the building. Some crawled under parked police cars and tried to squeeze past the legs of police officers in front of the entrances. Sheriff's crowd control officers will be trained in the next few weeks on how to arrest protesting quadriplegics and other disabled people without hurting them, Swanson said. Deputies might even find themselves under attack. Swanson said that in other cities, ADAPT members have formed wheelchair lines and rushed police barricades. Unless the ADAPT members were charged with felonies, which is unlikely, they would be processed through the county jail and released within a few hours. The jail, the state's most crowded, is under court order to release people accused of most non-violent crimes. Ed Hoyle, an assistant jail director, said if the protesters were arrested a second time, they probably would be held for a court appearance. The jail will have emergency medical workers on hand. For the protesters, the Orlando visit will not be all business. The ADAPT flier says, "There will be time at the end of the actions to play at Disney World and Epcot Center."
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The Orlando Sentinel Local & state B TUESDAY, October 8, 1991 [This clipping contains two articles. Artilce 1, titled Q & A is a boxed insert. It is continued on a page that are not currently available. Article 2 continues in ADAPT 686 but the entire text of the article is included here for easier reading.] Main Title: Disabled protesters refuse to attend talks Article 1 - Title: Q&A no author given; Lauren Ritchie is interviewer. Mike Auberger discusses why the group of disabled people that he helped organize is protesting the meeting of the American Health Care Association. Auberger was interviewed Monday from his cell at the Orange County Jail by Lauren Ritchie. Question: Why is ADAPT targeting nursing home operators? Answer: The nursing home industry is a $50 billion a year organization. lf you happen to be 30 years old and disabled and live, say, in Ocala —— and there are no personal assistance programs — than you're forced into a nursing home simply because you have physical needs you can't take care of yourself. Q: Why, from your perspective, is that bad? A: If you've ever talked to anybody who's been in a nursing home, the only difference between there and jail is the color of the uniforms. The jail uses guns to keep you there; the nursing home uses pills. You have no choice about when you get up, what you wear, what you eat or don't eat and when you go to bed. When we talk about nursing homes, we talk in terms of incarceration. You never escape from a nursing home. lf you are older and disabled, you could be forced to sell your home, forced to give up everything. The issue is quality of life. Most people can be taken care of in their own homes. Q: Why does ADAPT focus on nursing homes rather than the federal goverment? A: Under the Medicaid program, each state is required to participate in nursing home funding [for the disabled]. Every time a state does a budget it has to identify a certain amount of dollars for nursing homes. If you ... please see Q & A, B-4 Article 2 Photo by Red Huber/Sentinel: The picture is divided almost down the middle by a line of police barricades. On the left side a row of uniformed police officers stand leaning forward, arms stiff, holding the barricades in place. On the right a line of ADAPT protesters (San Anontio Fuentes closest to the camera) face off with the police. Behind them several standing people look on. Caption: A steel barricade and a line of Orange County deputy sheriffs prevent protesters from reaching the doors at the convention center. Title: Deputies expect the protests will grow worse when famous speakers address the convention. By Mary Brooks, of the Sentinel Staff Disabled activists demonstrating at a convention of nursing home operators rejected an offer to meet with industry leaders Monday, calling it a ploy to end their protest. But a spokeswoman for the American Health Care Association, which is playing host to 3,500 people at its annual conference in Orlando, said members of ADAPT -- Americans Disabled for Attendant Programs - seemed more interested in drawing television cameras than in drawing up an agreement at a discussion table. Activists say they plan to continue trying to block entrances to the Orange County Convention and Civic Center until the conference ends Thursday. Deputies expect the worst will come during the visits of the convention's noted speakers. This morning, Red Cross president Elizabeth Dole will address the convention. Television weatherman Willard Scott is scheduled to speak Wednesday. In their second day of demonstrations Monday; about 120 ADAPT members clustered near the three main entrances to the convention center on International Drive. They were barred from approaching the center doors by portable steel fences and 130 Orange County deputy sheriffs. "In the past they've blocked entrances with chains. We want to prevent that," said sheriff's spokesman Cpl. Doug Sarubbi. “They have a right to be here, but the conference attendees have a right to be here. too." Two protesters were arrested late Monday after they refused to stop using a loudspeaker. The protesters, many of them in wheelchairs and a few with guide dogs, sang, chanted and shouted at convention-goers. Tension mounted for several minutes when some of the disabled rammed their wheelchairs into the barricades. There were no injuries. Organizers said the 74 protesters arrested in clashes with deputies on Sunday at the Peabody Hotel on International Drive would not post bond and would remain in the Orange County Jail. Pat Hasley, a hotel security guard who suffered a heart attack during Sunday’s demonstration, was in stable condition Monday at Sand Lake Hospital. Denver-based ADAPT wants Medicaid to funnel 25 percent of the $23 billion nursing home budget to home care for the disabled. The group also wants the chance to address convention participants. “Right now, if you're disabled and need medical services and can’t afford it, they’re going to lock you up" in a nursing home, said Stephanie Thomas, an ADAPT organizer. Demonstrators claimed that 1.6 million disabled people in nursing homes really shouldn’t be there. “We don’t think the extreme needs of a very small percentage should dictate where all the money goes,” said Molly Blank, an organizer from Denver. During about four hours of protest Monday, some convention-goers stood outside the center to watch. Ralph Frasca of Cedar Falls, Iowa, and Mary Scheider of Joliet, Ill., were among a few who ventured over to talk to the demonstrators. “They have a legitimate grievance,” Scheider said. “The main issue is at-home care, diverting funding from institutional care to home care. The funding system now is skewed toward institutional care." Frasca, a journalism professor at the University of Northern lowa, said many convention participants were tumed off by ADAPT’s approach. “The discussion thus far has not centered around issues but rather the sensationalism of the event. I think a non confrontational, peaceful dialogue should be taking place." Linda Keegan, a spokeswoman for the American Health Care Association, said the demonstration did not disturb the convention activities. She said ADAPT had not contacted the association about a meeting or about getting time on the convention agenda before Sunday. She said the health care association’s executive board has met with the group twice this year, each meeting ending in chaos. “We made a commitment to meet. They made a commitment to protest.” The association proposed on Monday to meet with ADAPT on Thursday under the condition that the activists stop protesting. “We don't think that is a good faith offer," said Thomas. The Sheriffs Office and the jail had made extensive preparations for handling the disabled protesters, including special training and added staff. Sarubbi said the Sheriff's Office would not know what the cost would be until the demonstrations are over. Ed Royal, an Orange County Jail administrator, said volunteers from jail ministries were helping to defray some of the costs of handling the disabled inmates. The jail also had to get foam mattresses, diapers, chargers for wheelchair batteries, and other special equipment. The problems of caring for the protesters are many, Royal said. Staff and volunteers had to document and administer medication, and to help inmates relieve, bathe and feed themselves. Jail officials were able to make trades for some supplies with hospitals, but other materials had to be bought. Monday morning, 37 jailed activists began refusing food and liquids and another 10 would not eat but were drinking. Medical staff were monitoring the hunger strikers and were prepared to take them to hospitals if needed, said Royal. On its lawyers’ advice, the corrections department has been videotaping the disabled inmates since their arrival. "They have a history of saying they were mistreated while in custody, so we're taking no chances," said Royal.
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