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صفحه اصلی / آلبومها / برچسب civil rights 51
نمایش:
لیست ماهانه
تاریخ فرستاده شدن
ADAPT (1)
[This continues on ADAPT 2 and 3, but the entire text has been included here in ADAPT 1 for easier reading.] [letterhead] Atlantis Community Inc 2965 west 11th avenue denver colo 80204 303 893 8040 [Headline] The Atlantis Story In June of 1975, Atlantis was born as an alternative to the lives that young disabled persons were being forced to endure in nursing homes and state institutions. Early in 1974, a group of concerned disabled people and able-bodied allies began educating themselves to the plight of the young disabled adult. They found that the majority of these young people (some as young as twelve) who were living in nursing homes were virtually trapped in a stagnating, paternalistic prison where civil rights were blatantly violated, medical care was poor and impersonal, and individual initiative and self actualization were hostilely discouraged. The group that later became Atlantis began looking for alternatives to the prejudiced, dehumanizing lives these young people were seemingly doomed to continue. The first attempt was to create a special youth program in a nursing home, the object of which was to provide normalizing educational and social experiences. The program was to a large degree successful in terms of individual liberation, but it soon became apparent that the humanistic goals of the Atlantis group were in direct conflict with the profit making motivation and paternalistic traditions of the nursing home industry. It was then that the Atlantis Early Action Project was conceived - early in 1975. The goals were clear: to allow every disabled individual, regardless of the extent of her/his disability, the same rights and responsibilities of their able bodied peers - the freedom to choose a lifestyle and fulfill personal goals in education, employment, and personal growth, and freedom from a punitive traditional system that stigmatizes the disabled and segregates them from the mainstream of society. The planning started in January of 1975. Public housing units were leased from the Denver Housing Authority in the Las Casitas Development. Funds from the Colorado Division of Vocational Rehabilitation were secured to renovate the apartments and make them accessible to wheelchairs. In June, the first eight residents moved in. All were former 'patients’ in nursing homes, all had the courage and the desire to live on the outside. In a little over two years, Atlantis has grown from eight residents and a volunteer staff to an attendant staff of forty individuals and forty participants/residents. Seventeen of the residents presently live in the Early Action site, which has become a transitional living center, the remainder live in private sector apartments throughout the city and receive services from Atlantis. Traditionally the young disabled person has been denied the right to an adequate education or meaningful employment and has been sent to nonaccredited, segregated ‘special’ schools or to sheltered workshops to count fish hooks or untangle old phone cords for five cents an hour. Those who reside in nursing homes are often provided with no programming at all. At Atlantis, we try to assist the individual in fulfilling whatever goals s/he outlines. At the present time, residents are attending Denver Opportunity School, Boettcher School, and several of the area colleges. In addition, a constitutional law suit has been initiated by an Atlantis resident in an attempt to change existing laws which deny equal educational opportunities to the disabled. With funds from the Denver Opportunity School, Atlantis operates an Adult Education Center which offers individualized courses in remedial basic skills, speech therapy, and Braille. In an employment and basic life enrichment program financed by the Colorado Division of Vocational Rehabilitation, Atlantis provides a variety of employment opportunities to disabled persons and seeks out employment possibilities in the Denver-Metro area. In keeping with the Atlantis Charter, fifty percent of all positions at Atlantis are occupied by disabled individuals. Our experience has shown that merely providing housing and attendant services does not fully equip the disabled person coming out of an institution to lead an independent, self-directed life. For this reason, special programs have been initiated to aid residents in acquiring the skills necessary to take responsibility for their own lives. Home Training Classes, where residents meet in seminars and share ideas and skills, are held to teach how to organize and maintain an apartment. A Consumer Advocate teaches residents how to perform their own consumer activities such as budgeting money, using a checking account, and buying food and clothing. Other advocacy services available include a twenty four hour a day Crisis Hotline, a Financial Coordinator who assists individuals in getting their public assistance benefits, a Housing Information Service, a Legal Advocacy Service, and a Counseling Referral Service. Disabled persons are not 'sick' people. They do not require a 24 hour a day medical staff of nurses and aides to supervise their personal needs and social activities. What is needed is a consistent source of reliable assistance when they want it. In an attempt to break the traditional concept of home health care - Atlantis hires a pool of professionals who are trained and supervised by a Rehabilitation R.N. Attendant assistance is scheduled as it fits into individual routines and responds to individualized needs. Emphasis in health care is on teaching people to monitor their own - to be aware of their particular needs and be capable of getting those needs filled either self—sufficiently or with assistance. Staff is available on a twenty four hour a day basis in case an emergency arises, and can be reached by a call to the Crisis Hotline. The resident is responsible for scheduling baths, meals, etc. There are no rules governing any individual's mobility or social life. We uphold the right of the disabled to take responsible control over their own lives. Disabled people do have special medical needs. Nurses, attendants and physicians who work with them should have this specialized knowledge. The Atlantis attendant staff is trained in areas of special health concern such as skin, bladder and bowel care, and routine medical needs. Atlantis makes full use of existing medical facilities, primarily the Denver General Health System. We are oriented toward rehabilitative activities and any person who has the desire for rehabilitation is given the opportunity to explore it. Many who were diagnosed at an early age as unrehabilitatable have shown tremendous progress when allowed access to therapists and equipment. It is our belief that any disabled person should have the right to choose where and how s/he wants to live. We believe that the same monies that are provided to house someone in an institution should be made available to those who wish to live independently. We are working to this end. At the present time, an institution in Colorado receives upwards of $600.00 a month in tax money to provide custodial care for a ‘patient’. That same person, once out of an institution, is eligible for maximum public assistance Payments of $402.00 a month to support her/himself and purchase attendant services. Many receive less than the full amount. We can find no valid justification for this huge discrepancy which results in the taxpayer supporting the highly lucrative nursing home industry and discourages the disabled and elderly from pursuing independent and meaningful lives. Our philosophy envelopes the ideas of individual liberty and opportunity, and we are aware of the process that must take place. Liberation from the stagnation of institutional life needs to be coupled with a viable process by which disabled persons can integrate themselves into society as self-fulfilled, independent citizens. It is our hope at Atlantis that by bringing disabled persons together, they can, through shared energy and experience, teach and support each other in achieving freedom and growth.
ADAPT (16)
The Denver Post - Sunday June 1, 1975 PHOTO by John Prieto: A woman (Linda Chism) sits in a wheelchair with her legs extended out in front of her and covered by a blanket. Her shoulders are covered by a jacket. She has a lap board on her chair and her purse/bag is resting on it. She is looking ahead. To her left sits a man (Glenn Kopp) in a wheelchair. He has longish hair, a goatee and is wearing glasses. He looks down slightly, as if listening. In the front bottom corner of the picture someone's arm is visible. Caption reads: Linda Chism and Glenn Kopp discuss Independent-Living Idea They are in living room of apartment at the Las Casitas complex. [Headline] Independence from Nursing Homes - Atlantis' Handicapped Move to New Life by Pat Afzal On the surface, this Sunday is just a moving day for eight Denver area young men and women. Underneath, however, the day emerges as a first, precious taste of freedom for them. They are severely handicapped and will move out of nursing homes Sunday into their own apartments and have a crack at independent living. Sunday will be, oh .... like Christmas,” says wheelchair-bound Glenn Kopp, co-executive director of the Atlantis Community, Inc. The group is leasing the apartments where the young adults will live. Linda Chism, Atlantis' treasurer-accountant, likens the moving experience to “a flower opening up. We don't know how it's going to work out for sure. Things will sort of evolve." Their excitement seems normal because they're helping others embark on a new experience. Then they begin to talk about why the independent-living idea got going. And their comments harden into strong indictments against the institutional way of life for the young handicapped. "You know about civil rights?," Kopp asks a reporter. "Well, a handicapped person in an institution has no civil rights." "That statement about race, creed and color - well, it doesn't apply to handicapped people. We're left out of it." Kopp, who was worked in a Denver area nursing home said that when residents there went against the rules, a punishment was to take their electric wheel chairs away. “That's (the chairs) your freedom, you’re movement. Without it, you can't get around." [Subheading] Rule Ridiculed He ridiculed a rule that said the handicapped had to be in bed by 9 p.m. “Why should a grown man have to go to bed at 9 o’clock?" he asks. “It's a so very dehumanizing way to live, to say the least,” Ms. Chism adds. “You’re without privacy. All your dignity is just gone. You're not recognized as a person. You're a patient and that's it.” Nursing homes "like a lot of young people around, tooling around in their wheel chairs,” Kopp says. “lt adds an air of something nicer than just a lot of people sitting around.” By the same token, there isn't a lot of willingness to give the young people the freedom they feel and need, Kopp says. Those who are “lucky enough to have a taste of living normally really get depressed. It can be a very sad thing." It was soon after Kopp stopped working for the nursing home in Denver that he and a friend — Wade Blank — decided that “there's gotta be a better way to live. There has to be some better options." They slowly began to attract verbal, but not much monetary, support for their idea and Atlantis Community, Inc., was born. Eventually the group wants to build a 140-unit apartment complex for the severely handicapped. Right now, however, their first project is the seven apartment units in Las Casitas complex on Denver's west side where the eight young people will be moving Sunday. The apartments are on the western edge of a larger apartment complex in the 1200 block of Federal Boulavard. Credit for helping to make Atlantis’ dream a reality goes to Dr. Henry A. Foley, state director of social services, and John Helm of the Denver Housing Authority, Kopp said. “We went in cold to Dr. Foley, and he got us $3,000 seed money to apply to a larger grant," Kopp said. The grant, from the Department of Vocational Rehabilitation, made possible almost $20,000 in renovations at the Las Casitas apartments. Helm told them about the apartment vacancies. The new tenants will live on welfare and social service payments, and visiting nurses and on-site attendants will help take care of their medical and personal needs. On July 1, six other tenants will move in. Those slated for the Sunday move are “frightened, understandably,” Ms. Chism says. “When you've lived in an nursing home much of your life, you’re naturally apprehensive about living on your own." She said police were worried about the safety of the tenants because the apartments are in a higher-crime area. “But they (police) don't realize that in an institution, you don’t own anything for very long because it’s stolen," Kopp said. [Headline] Meetings Encouraging Meetings with a tenant union at Las Casitas have been encouraging, he added, and residents already living there have welcomed the idea of their new neighbors. The problem now is for Atlantis Community to stay alive financially so other young handicapped adults also can experience the freedom of independent living. And there are immediate problems like finding things such as kitchen utensils, bed linen and furniture to make the Las Casitas like home. But optimism about the future is apparent. “When you think of how far we've come in a year," Ms. Chism says. “I'd say there's a lot more to come from Atlantis."
ADAPT (31)
[Headline] Heritage House Sued: Funds Violations Charged by Linda Cayton Attorneys for the Senior Citizens Law Center have filed suit in U.S. District Court charging the administrator and owners of Heritage House Nursing Care Center in Lakewood with illegally misappropriating and withholding personal needs money of patients, inadequate care, and intimidating and threatening residents who seek legal counsel. Officials of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare; Colorado Department of Social Services; and the Colorado Board of Health were also named as defendants for failure to enforce federal and state regulations governing nursing homes. The civil action represents a class action suit prompted by complaints received by the Legal Aid Society from the chief plaintiff, Patrick Smith, a 20 year old multiple sclerosis patient. Smith, a Medicaid patient, receives $25 per month from the Federal Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program to cover his personal needs. Early this year, Smith suffered a total respiratory breakdown and entered a local hospital. According to facts set forth in the lawsuit, while Smith was hospitalized, Thomas O'Halloran, administrator of Heritage House, instructed a bookkeeper to forge an “x” on Smith's SSI check. The check was endorsed, cashed, and credited to Smith's personal needs account. When Smith returned to the nursing home, O'Halloran informed him that his SSI check was unavailable. Later, Smith was informed that his check had been endorsed and cashed. Smith filed a complaint with the Legal Aid Society concerning the forgery. When attorneys informed O'Halloran of the complaint, he confronted Smith, calling him "despicable" and “ungrateful," and issued a week's eviction notice to him. Later, Smith's calls for nursing assistance went unanswered for some time and he was denied access to his medical files. In April, O’Halloran met with Assistant Colorado Attorney General Tony Accetta. According to Accetta's signed affidavit, O’Halloran admitted authorizing the forgery of Smith's signature in the belief that Smith would die before returning to Heritage House. O'Halloran also admitted circulating a memo stating that he did not “welcome harassment and threats from the legal profession” and explained that he threatened Smith with eviction because he did not want lawyers going through patients’ records. The suit charges O’Halloran and the owners of Heritage House with violating the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution by depriving patients of the rights to manage their monies, to seek legal counsel, to adequate and proper medical and psychosocial treatment and care, to timely and adequate notice and opportunity for a hearing prior to a transfer from the facility and to access to their medical files. Casper Weinberger, Secretary of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare; Henry G. Foley, Executive Director of the Colorado Department of Social Services; and Edward Dreyfus, Director of the Colorado Department of Health were charged in the lawsuit with non-enforcement of the U.S. Constitution and those laws applicable to skilled nursing facilities. According to federal regulations, a nursing home patient should either manage his personal financial affairs or be given a quarterly accounting of financial transactions made on his behalf; be encouraged to exercise his rights as a patient and as a citizen with the right to voice grievances and remain free from reprisals; and be transferred or discharged only for medical reasons, or for his welfare, and be given advance notice of the transfer. State officials are charged with refusing to revoke or enforce Medicaid agreements or licenses of nursing homes that violate patients’ civil rights or provide inadequate care; inspecting nursing homes only once a year and giving prior notice of those inspections to the facility; and refusing to establish procedures for the management of patients’ personal needs money. Owners named in the civil action are Oscar Gross and H. Sol Cersonsky, general partners of Heritage House Associates; and Jack D. Feuer, a limited partner of Heritage House. Also named are limited partners M.J. Beitscher, Harry Berman, Bernard Ceronsky, Louis L. Fox, Howard D. Greyber, Martin Gross, Soloman Gross, Arnold Heller, Barry B. Melnick, Manuel Nash, and Johnny M. Weinreich.
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Rocky Mountain News Sunday March 27, 1977 Disabled are limited by society's attitudes By Alan Cunningham PHOTO by John Gordon, News: A young man (Larry Ruiz) sits in a wheelchair in front of a building. The shot shows his whole body and wheelchair and is looking up at Larry's smiling face. (For those who knew Larry, it's a classic Larry smile.) Caption reads: Larry Ruiz is one of those leading better lives of the Atlantis community. Nobody seems to know exactly how many disabled Americans there are - or even how one should define them. In Colorado, the figures are even more sketchy than they are nationally. But one estimate, based on federal statistics, suggests there may be as many as 350,000 disabled citizens in this state. If true, that would mean that 14 percent of the population suffers from some disability. The same projection indicates that as many as 83,000 of these persons as unable to work, keep house or go to school. Gov. Dick Lamm sometimes uses a more conservative figure of 10 percent. But even if that is closer to the truth, it shows that the plight of the disabled is a major problem. It also offers a clue as to why the disabled seem sure to emerge soon as the country's newest civil rights lobby. The have the numbers to make themselves heard - and seen - if they can begin to speak out with a unified voice, demanding their fair share of the American Pie. Until now, they've suffered the fate of most minority groups: invisibility. This is ironic, since most are highly visible if anyone chooses to see them. But for many reasons - not the least a sense of guilt - the able-bodied tend to turn away from those with crutches, wheelchairs and seeing eye dogs. And those who plan public facilities and services often reflect this attitude. It is politically safe for them to ignore the needs of the disabled pretending such persons make up a tiny fraction of the population and thus don't deserve a major share of attention. A myth to be sure. But it is only one of several myths which the Atlantis community, a group home for handicapped persons, in a minority report to the upcoming White House Conference on Handicapped individuals, hopes to destroy. For instance, there is the idea that nursing homes are primarily heavens for the aged and the infirm. The opposite side of that assumption is set forth in the opening chapter of the Atlantis report. Few realize that our nation's institutions also house a great many disabled young persons, some in their early teens. THESE ARE THE victims of our society's response to children and young adults who have muscular dystrophy, cerebral palsy, birth defects, blindness, and neurological disorders, or have survived accidents of varying kinds. But they are there by the thousands, many simply because they were labeled by physicians and psychologists as "retarded" and unable to function normally. It is difficult to imagine a more stifling or inappropriate atmosphere for a young person. It is inhumane to shackle and imprison youthful energy and curiosity into the nursing home routine. Such repressive living leads to anger, hostility and finally to the withdrawal and waste of a battered ego. As the report goes on to explain, the Atlantis group has fought to get more than 30 young men and women out of nursing homes and institutions so as to demonstrate that they can reverse this pattern if given a chance. But, even as it begins to reverse, new problems emerge. Most have to do with obstacles which the world has placed in the way of the disabled person. Again, it has a lot do with society's tendency to act as if he doesn't exist. Funds for rehabilitation programs, both public and private, are so scarce that only a small fraction of the disabled ever benefit from them. A prime example of this comes from State Rehabilitation Director Glenn Crawford, who says his division has determined that 135,000 persons in Colorado are potentially eligible for its services. Yet, in 1976, the division served about 14,300 persons. The figure will inch its way up to 16,000 this year. Such private facilities as the widely acclaimed Craig Hospital also have finite resources. They apply guidelines to decide which applicants will be accepted and which won't. Needless to say, a lawyer whose only disability is the loss of his legs has a better chance than a 19-year-old with no schooling who has lain on his back for most of his life. Funds and facilities for handicapped scarce Those who don't get the help often wind up in the category that Wade Blank of Atlantis refers to as "the losers." He contends that those who work with the disabled have too quickly given up on this group of people consigning them to lives of hopelessness. And he further argues that the implications of this have narrowed opportunities not only for the severely disabled, but for many others with less serious problems. For even those who have escaped the awful label of the "loser" run into obstacles every day. The Atlantis report focuses on many of these obstacles. These are some of the observations: EDUCATION. Many disabled youngsters in the past have failed to get adequate schooling either because they were in institutions or because their families assumed they would never be able to lead normal lives as adults and consequently didn't need to be trained for careers. Even those who went to school often were sidelined into special programs for the handicapped. While academic standards were high in such programs, the students were poorly prepared either intellectually or emotionally, to get along in a world of able-bodied persons. The recommended solution, "mainstreaming"- that is, letting disabled youngsters and adults go to school in the same classroom with everyone else. MONEY. The complexities of the various welfare programs on the county, state and federal level often conspire to keep disabled persons in nursing homes. Counties often find they have to pay more money if a man or woman is living in his own apartments, or in a facility, such as Atlantis, than they do if he or she is in a nursing home. That's because the federal government pays the bulk of the nursing home fee. Likewise, assistance payments are cut off if a disabled person earns more than a pittance in a month's time. The cutoff can be as low as $65. The "maximum level of income"from federal state and county assistance payments is $185. This means many disabled persons are living below the poverty level as it has been defined for other underprivileged groups. The solution as viewed by those who put together the Atlantis report, is to simplify and integrate the complicated payments system. But even more important, to increase payments so that everyone gets the same amount of money whether he is in an institution or out. TRANSPORTATION. The report talks about a number of things here including electric wheelchairs and curb cuts, but is main statement under this heading is that bus systems such as the Regional Transportation District (RTD) should become fully accessible to the disabled. RTD, it contends, has been unresponsive to the needs of disabled would be riders for transportation to work, school and for pleasure trips. Even the special HandiRide service - which RTD often boasts is a frontrunner in the nation - is given poor marks. LAWS. [not legible...] Colorado concerning the disabled in general and the severely physically disabled in particular, the report states. Furthermore, it is not realistic to think that the disabled will get effective legislation passed without having government officials sensitized to the disabled's problems. This may already be changing. Largely due to lobbying by Atlantis, hearings were underway in the General Assembly this week on two bills aimed at helping the disabled. One, a Senate bill now in committee, would allow more Coloradans to receive payments so they could hire home attendants. The other, a House bill, is a "civil rights bill for the handicapped." It would bar discrimination against the disabled. Backers of the latter bill point out that it's needed because the federal civil rights laws, while dealing with the rights of racial minorities and women, have never guaranteed these same rights to disabled citizens. Idealy, says the Atlantis report, Congress and the state legislatures need to weed out laws which are confusing and contradictory, often creating "disincentives"for the disabled to pursue more normal lives. A wholistic approach is needed. JOBS. Virtually every problem mentioned above, plus all the others catalogued in the report, tend to stand in the way of the disabled person who seriously wants to go to work in spite of the lip service paid to the slogan, "Hire the handicapped," many find the doors still closed. The reasons are many and the problems complex. Lack of schooling is a factor. Some disabled persons have languished in sheltered workshops, counting fish hooks and getting paid $10 a month for it, the report says. Others have an education but find that architectural barriers, or the lack of adequate bus service, keep them from getting to jobs they could perform. And attitudes often stand in the way when physical barriers are moved aside. "Perhaps the greatest barrier of all is in the minds of men," the report notes. It advocates more and better training programs, plus affirmative action plans to assure that larger numbers of disabled workers are hired by public and private employers. In an elaborate ceremony several weeks ago, the Atlantis report was presented to Mayor Bill McNichols. But privately some of those connected with the report conceded they didn't expect to see much action on the local level until public policies in Washington and throughout the nation begin to change significantly. That's why the Atlantis group is placing much emphasis on its efforts to make an impression on the Carter administration during its formative period. The time seems ripe for a coalition of disabled groups around the country to launch a concerted civil rights drive on behalf of their "invisible" constituents. And the first test may come April 5, when many groups have threatened to stage a sit-in at offices of the Department of Health Education and Welfare, including the regional office in Denver, if new HEW Secretary Joseph Califano hasn't issued new regulations to implement laws for the disabled. "The disabled have been ignored far too long in this society," declares the Atlantis report. "We are demanding that our rights be addressed. We are giving you, the policy makers, our findings and recommendations on how to solve the inequities in the system. "The next is yours." Such words, when voiced by other groups, have inevitably been followed by major social changes. It seems likely the same pattern will apply here. PHOTO by John Gordon, News: A man lies in a hospital bed, covered by sheets. Photo is very dark and hard to make out. Caption reads: Shooting victim [unreadable] from nursing home [unreadable] he said [unreadable] has been paralyzed since [unreadable].
ADAPT (45)
Rocky Mountain News Mon., March 22, 1976, Denver, Colo. Banner Headline for story. PHOTO on left of headline: Head and shoulders shot of a young man (Michael Smith) with dark hair, pulled back in ponytail, dark beard and moustache. His head is tilted slightly to one side and he is smiling a bit. Caption reads: Michael Smith. He had a dream; He prayed that He would walk again someday. But someday never came. [Headline] Late poet a plaintiff in nursing home case Page 5 [Banner headline in ADAPT 44. Story starts here in ADAPT 45 and continues in ADAPT 46, but the entire text is included here for ease of reading.] Late poet was plaintiff in nursing home lawsuit By Jonathan Dedmon, News Staff Michael Smith was a poet. A victim of muscular dystrophy, Michael wasn't able to hold a pen, however. Weighing less than 100 pounds, one of the few physical tasks he was able to perform was to turn the pages of the many books he read. He would keep stanzas of poetry stored in his head and wait for friends or staff at the Heritage House Nursing Home in Lakewood where he lived to have free time so he could dictate his verse. A former aide remembers when she would be busy caring for patients and Mike would say, "Got to write." "We'd say, ‘Sorry, Mike‘ Don‘t have time.‘ A lot of his poetry was lost." In addition to being a poet, Mike also was an idealist. Because of what friends say was that idealism, in spite of the fact Mike died in October at the age of 21, he lives on not only in a published book of his poems but also in a giant legal battle in U.S. District Court. THE BATTLE COULD have a large impact on the care of handicapped patients in nursing homes throughout the country since it attacks the entire method of delivering health care. The suit, in which Mike was an original plaintiff, charges nursing home patients routinely are being denied their rights and even fundamental medical care, contrary to the wishes of Congress in its Medicaid law. U.S. Judge Richard Matsch currently is considering how much jurisdiction the federal court has in the case. But already a number of patients and nursing home employees have come forward with a series of affidavits which are a litany of patient abuse. The charges are leveled primarily against the former Heritage House Nursing Center in Lakewood, which since has been sold and is operating under new management and a new name. The suit’s allegations range from patients not having the colostomy bags changed to failure of the staff to provide any rehabilitation efforts. THE NURSING HOME attorney and a part owner deny the charges which are contained in a half dozen affidavits filed with the court. Pam Malpass worked as an aide from August 1974 to February of last year. Here are parts of her affidavit: “People were punished sometimes by having their wheelchairs turned off, cut their mobility (sic). Wheelchairs at Heritage House were constantly in disrepair and falling apart leading to weekly crises. Paul Brae, a Heritage House resident, fell out of his chair because it was falling apart and crawled under his bed and said he was (sic) [not] going to come out until he got a new wheelchair [cut off] we procured for him with some difficulty. Bowel programs for a number of residents weren't maintained properly resulting in infections. Colostomies and catheters weren't cleaned properly or regularly also resulting in infections for a number of patients. I also often observed that colostomy bags and catheters improperly were connected to the people that needed them with the result that they leaked and backed up." Michael Ray, an orderly from May 1974 to January of last year, said in his affidavit that on at least a dozen occasions, he made marks with a felt-tipped pen on patients’ dressings on open bed sores to make sure they were being changed twice a day as they should have been. “Each time when I looked, a day later, sometimes longer, the dressings I had put on with the markings were still there. The unclean sores lead to more serious complications and infections. During the six months I was working at Heritage House I never saw a doctor." FAILURE TO MAINTAIN a bowel program can lead to bowel poisoning and even to surgery. Mark Biles was impacted for three weeks while I was there necessitating an elaborate program of oral laxatives, suppositories and enemas to give him relief. The owners and the administrators always met suggestions or requests from the staff on behalf of patients residing there with the remark that they cost too much or if you don't like it why don't you get the hell out. “The only time that Heritage House was concemed about the cleanliness of the home was when the state inspection team announced it would appear.” ACCORDING TO JOHN Holland, who heads a team of Legal Aid attorneys working on the case, “We're saying that when Congress established Medicaid, it intended to create a real system of delivering high quality medical care to poor people, not a system that couldn't deliver for a significant number. The benefits aren't getting there.” A particular target is the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW), which is charged with making sure nursing homes comply with federal standards to insure high quality health care. Legal Aid, which is reluctant to say too much about the case because it is pending, feels HEW merely established a “paper compliance" system whereas Congress wanted a compliance system to “see benefits and rights delivered and prevent the kinds of injuries and deprivations of rights alleged in the suit." THE SUIT NAMES every rung in the bureaucracy which participates in the provision of nursing home care, ranging from the owners of Heritage House to the state Department of Social Services and HEW. In addition to asking for monetary damages, the suit also seeks an injunction prohibiting deprivation of medical care and patient rights. The rights include proper medical and psychosocial treatment and care, the right to seek legal counsel and manage personal monies, the right to voice grievances and the right to adequate notice and opportunity for a hearing prior to transfer, among others. It also asks HEW to come up with a decent system of enforcing compliance with such federal laws. Because of the complex nature of the suit, it already has become a “paper nightmare," according to Holland, and a “paper war,“ according to Heritage House attomey Bob Eberhardt. THE PLEADINGS STAND some two feet high and the court hasn't decided jurisdiction yet. Perhaps one of the most damning affidavits filed so far is by Janice Jacobson, a former administrator of Heritage House. “Heritage House was filthy, cockroaches had infested the entire home (with the exception of the kitchen). The walls wene very dirty and an odor of urine permeated the air. “Flies were everywhere. They present a particular problem to those persons who are bedfast or paralyzed because they can't swat the flies from their faces or bodies. “Temperature controls were broken. Zone control valves which control the room temperature were corroded either open or shut so that the rooms were unbearably hot or cold. “INDIVIDUAL CARE PLANS are either totally inadequate or not existent." “Patients who had to be fed were degraded by impatient orderlies who constantly hurried them along faster than they could comfortably go on the pretext of there not being enough time to feed them." “Staff would get angry with people for having something wrong with them like uncontrolled bowels." “Lots of patients would never get dressed every day. The staff didn’t like to take the time to dress them. By keeping patients undressed a general institutional goal of keeping them in bed and more inactive was more readily achieved. “It was not uncommon for people who did get dressed to not be undressed but rather to sleep in their clothes. l received complaints from one family that one of the male patients there had the same clothes on for weeks. They knew because the same spot was on his shirt for three weeks." “Visitors and relatives often complained that their relatives or friends hadn't received baths or showers for weeks." “It was reported to me by nursing staff the director of nursing believed physical correction of resident misconduct was permissible and that she employed a technique of having persons she decided were misbehaving placed in cold showers." “The call button system at Heritage House often wasn't working and when it was, working staff very often didn't respond to calls. There was one incident while I was there where family members called in and said they heard their mother was dead. The nurse had to go down to the room to see if this was so. The woman had been dead for several hours." Mrs. Jacobson says, in her view, Heritage House was “warehousing people, not delivering health care." "Residents had no more rights than children and the official view was that the staff knew what was best for them and if the patients didn't think we were doing everything right or what they needed they could just leave." Management expressed this view often. “PATIENTS WERE KEPT tractable and quiescent by intimidation and medication. Encouraging people to be as normal as they can be is the essence of good nursing care. It was not done at Heritage House.“ In response, Heritage House attorney Eberhardt said the accusations are “totally untrue and completely without foundation. You can't cross-examine affidavits. The truth will come out in the trial. “ He also points to the affidavit of Allen Buckingham, regional director of the HEW office of Long Term Care Standards Enforcement. Buckingham stated his office never received any complaints concerning the allegations. Oscar Gross, former part owner and also a defendant, said he never would have been able to keep his license if the allegations were true. In addition, he said his home was the only home to provide a wing specifically for handicapped youths and he even received two awards from the wing. “We tried to do our best," he said. He also offered to take the News to the home to interview patients about conditions. He said his wife still visits patients. Gross sold the home in February and it now is under new management. Gross said he sold the home simply as “a business transaction.“ Before Michael Smith died last year, he testified at one hearing on the case. “He already felt he had won," recalled Mrs. Malpass.
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The Denver Post - Sat April 30, 1977 PHOTO by Dave Buresh: A fancy room inside the Colorado capitol building with Greek columns and ornately carved doors, is filled with protesters. Several are carry signs: "More job opportunities for the handicapped" and "End discrimination for handicapped." A blind African American man with a an afro, a fancy dashiki type jacket and pendant speaks into a microphone as an older white man in shirt sleeves and a necktie holds a paper in his hand. A woman standing between them looks down at the paper. Caption reads: Handicapped Demonstrate Outside of Joint Budget Committee Offices. At microphone is Don Galloway, with State Rep. Morgan Smith, center and Janet Anderson in middle. [Headline] Handicapped Rejoice at Rights Success by Jim Kirksey Flushed with the success of helping secure enactment of a “Bill of Rights" for the handicapped on Thursday, more than 200 handicapped and disabled Coloradans celebrated and demonstrated Friday at the State Capitol. A new set of regulations that puts into effect a 1973 law was signed Thursday by Joseph Califano secretary or the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW). Its enactment was credited to the efforts of handicapped persons across the country, and especially to a nationwide demonstration by the handicapped three weeks ago. The law extends civil rights to the handicapped those civil rights guarantee already granted to ethnic minorities and women. THE FESTIVE CROWD gathered on the west steps of the Capitol about 10:30 a.m. to hear a number of speakers congratulate them on their success and to caution them about the future. The gathering - many people in wheelchairs, some on crutches, others with white canes or guide dogs - were told they were responsible for the victory, but were cautioned that it "it is only a beginning." not legible ...the HEW regulations would become a reality only if they are pursued, and the crowd was urged to remain united in the future for that effort. THE SPEAKERS included Don Galloway, executive director of the Governors Advisory Council on the Handicapped; Janet Anderson, administrative assistant to the council; Lt. Gov. George Brown; Wade Blank, codirector of Denver's Atlantis Community; Ingo Antonitsch, executive director of the Denver Commission on the Disabled; Diane McGeorge, president of the National Federation for the Blind of Colorado; and Ludwig Rothbein, of the Colorado Developmental Disability Council. After approximately an hour, the crowd moved inside the Capitol and presented legislators with a list urging them to: -- Promote the "deinstitutionalization" of the disabled with increased state supplemental income payments and home care attendants fees. -- Require school districts to integrate disabled students into their classrooms. -- Legislate removal of architectural barriers. -- Limit the growth of the nursing home industry as the wrong answer to problems of the disabled and handicapped. -- Investigate the nursing home industry and state institutions and prosecute cases of abuse and violations of civil rights. -- Expand affirmative action programs to include the disabled. -- Appropriate $188,000 to restore to Denver General Hospital monies for services to the mentally ill. -- Create a permanent advisory council on the disabled with the funding and power to “make effective changes." -- Establish accessible polling places for the disabled. THE GROUP stood outside the third floor office of the legislature's Joint Budget Committee and chanted, "We want to see the JBC.” State Sen. Ted Strickland, R-Westminister, chairman of the JBC, State Reps Belly Neale, R-Denver, Morgan Smith, D-Brighton, both JBC members and Robert Eckelberry consulted with the gathering for 300 minutes. Strickland, who met with them for about 20 minutes, addressed each of the listed demands by telling of action already taken and assuring them that the JBC hearings in next year's budget would be held in facilities where the disabled and handicapped could take part. Neale said the JBC “does have the best interests of the handicapped at heart," and Smith assured them that he would circulate their demands throughout the legislature.
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Rocky Mountain News, Wed., April 6, 1977, Denver, Colo. PHOTO by John Gordon: A large crowd of protesters, many in wheelchairs, are gathered outside a building. All are facing the building and a couple carry signs. Caption reads: Wheelchair demonstrators gather at noon Tuesday in front of federal courthouse. [Headline] Disabled protest lack of HEW action By Alan Cunningham Chanting slogans and carrying picket signs attached to crutches, more than 100 disabled persons staged a protest march and sit-in Tuesday at the federal office building in downtown Denver. Their sit-in was expected to last all night outside the regional office of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) It was part of a nationwide protest aimed at forcing HEW Secretary Joseph Califano to sign regulations implementing a "handicapped bill of rights" passed by Congress nearly four years ago. The demonstration was peaceful, for the most part, but was marred by one incident in which a parking lot manager across the street from the federal complex allegedly assaulted demonstrator Dennis Wilcox, a quadraplegic, causing him to fall out of his wheelchair. Wilcox apparently was unhurt. The manager, James C. Chidlaw, insisted the encounter occurred accidentally as he attempted to guide stalled motorists through his lot. But, on complaints by Wilcox and another demonstrator, Chidlaw was cited into county court to face two charges of assault. Simultaneous demonstrations too part at HEW headquarters in Washington and at regional offices in Denver and eight other cities. They brought forth an assurance from Califano that he would sign the regulations “early in May," but Denver demonstrators — part of a nationwide coalition which had demanded he sign by Monday - were unimpressed. In speeches outside the federal courthouse at noon Tuesday, they declared they wanted to see immediate action by HEW, followed by an aggressive program to carry out various facets of the four-year-old law. At issue is Section 504 of the Federal Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which had never been put into effect. Handicapped groups have fought with HEW secretaries under Presidents Nixon, Ford and now Carter to force them to sign regulations which would implement the act. A federal judge ordered last year that such regulations be signed, but the matter still went unresolved. The law when it takes effect, will guarantee many of the same rights to handicapped Americans which were extended to racial minorities and to women under prior legislation of the last two decades. Its provisions are expected to force public school districts to open many more of their classrooms to wheelchair-bound students, to force employers to grant equal pay to handicapped employees and to provide more stringent civil rights guarantees to those in nursing homes and institutions. The protests brought assurances from several elected officials that they were trying to persuade President Carter to speed up action on the matter. Messages to this effect came from Gov.Lamm and U.S. Sen. Floyd Haskell, D-Colo. In addition, a Washington aide to Rep. Pat Schroeder, D-Colo., told the News late Tuesday that she was drafting a telegram asking that Carter order Califano to act. Other protests took place at HEW regional offices in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Seattle and San Francisco. Among the leaders of the Denver gathering were Ingo Antonisch, executive director of the Mayor's Commission on the Disabled, and Don Galloway, the new executive director of the Governor's Advisory Council on the Handicapped. Even Antonisch, an Austrian-born man with a stiff German accent and a generally conservative approach, was drawn into the militancy of the event. After acting HEW regional director Ed Lapidas read Califano's "early in May" statement, Antonisch stepped to the microphone and said, "Thank you very much," which inspired a woman in the crowd to yell, "We don't thank him very much, Ingo!" Antonisch got in the spirit by declaring, "I would like to say we hear the message but we want to see the action." Galloway, a black man who has been blind since he was 16, stirred up the crowd with a brief speech reminiscent of earlier civil rights campaigns. Taking his cues, they responded with lusty cries of “Right on" Even many who had difficulty speaking loudly and clearly joined in as best they could. At one point, Lyle Peterson, master of ceremonies at the noon rally, tried to lead the crowd in a chorus of "We Shall Overcome," traditional anthem of the black civil rights movement. The song proceeded weakly for a few seconds, but died when one protestor interrupted, shouting: "We want our rights!" Immediately, the crowd picked up his line and began to chant "We want our rights!" with an enthusiasm that had been lacking in the aborted attempt to sing. BOXED TEXT: We hear the message but we want to see the action. -- Ingo Antonisch
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Rocky Mountain News 6/30/77 [This text contains the story that appears in ADAPT 67 and ADAPT 72, but the entire text is included here for easier reading.] PHOTO (News Photo): In darkened doorway a young woman in a wheelchair (Debby Tracy) appears light against the background, almost like she is glowing. She is a in a motorized wheelchair, the armrests come almost up to her arm pits. Her legs are turned to one side and her feet don't meet the footrests. She is looking up a bit and smiling a big smile; her long delicate fingers play around her control box (for her chair) and her other armrest. Caption reads: Debbie Tracy at home: "I want to go back to school. I like it there." [Headline] Debbie Tracy fighting to acquire knowledge By Sue Lindsay Roll Two years ago Debbie Tracy couldn't tell time. Today she reads the newspaper every morning. Her IQ has increased by 45 points. The source of her improvement was two years in a Denver public school specializing in special education. But Debbie, who was born with cerebral palsy and spent most of her life in institutions for the disabled, is 21 now and Denver school officials say she's too old to remain in public schools. They cite a state law saying the school district is required to educate children only up to age 20. Forty wheelchair-bound young adults converged in front of the school administration building at 900 Grant St. Wednesday to demonstrate their support for Debbie’s right to more education in Denver public schools. Debbie's mother, Elaine Jacoby. says she'll go to court if necessary to fight what she sees as a violation of her daughter's civil rights. She threatened to sue the Denver Board of Education, the state Institutions Department and the State Home and Training School in Wheat Ridge, where Debbie lived for nine years, for misdiagnosing her daughter's mental capacity and depriving her of an education. DEBBIE SEES HER PLIGHT more simply. "I want in go back to school,“she said. "l like it there. I've been learning all kinds of things I didn't know before." Supporting Mrs. Jacoby and Debbie in their fight in the Atlantis Community, an organization which works to remove the severely disabled from institutions and place in jobs and apartments throughout the community. "Debbie is an adult who has been deprived access to the education that would give her the skills she needs to be independent," said Mrs Jacoby, who is divorced from Debbie's father. “l am not asking the taxpayers to finance her until she is prepared for college. But I feel that the Denver public schools owe Debbie more than two years of very basic education before they throw her out into society. I fail to see why my child should be denied what every other child has simply because she is not able-bodied." Mrs. Jacoby said Debbie is a victim of the state's failure to meet the needs of handicapped children. She said Debbie was prohibited from attending public schools and even special education schools because cerebral palsy, a disorder which affects the muscles, had left her without bladder control. For five years, Mrs. Jacoby said she repeatedly tried to get Debbie into public schools. DEBBIE ATTENDED THE United Cerebral Palsy Center for five years. But Mrs. Jacoby said the training there was at pre-school level, directed toward a future in a sheltered workshop. "This was not an acceptable goal for my daughter," Mrs. Jacoby said. During this period, numerous psychological tests were conducted. When Debbie was 10, her mother placed her at Ridge Home. "I thought she would receive educational and social programming that was adequate, but I found again that programs available to able-bodied children," she said. When Debbie turned 19, things began looking up. The state passed the Handicapped Children's Act which, since 1975, has required public schools to provide education for handicapped and disabled persons aged 5 through 20. Debbie moved out of Ridge to the Atlantis Community at 2965 W. 11th Ave. and entered Boettcher Elementary School, a special education facility within the Denver school system. Her progress was remarkable. "When we got her from the Ridge she didn't know her alphabet, she didn't know her colors, she couldn't tell time," said Wade Blank, an executive director of the Atlantis Community. "Now she’s alert and able and eager to learn. She reads the Rocky Mountain News. Debbie had an IQ of 50 when she got out of Ridge. Two years later her IQ is 95. That says a lot to us.” She now functions at the level of a third or fourth grader, according to Blank. “We know she would be a normal functioning adult if only she had been given the opportunity to develop," he said. “Instead, the state shoves everyone into state homes where they vegetate just because they happen to be confined to wheelchairs. It has nothing to do with actual mental ability. " But Debbie is now 21. She has been told that she can no longer attend Boettcher or any other Denver public school. Mrs. Jacoby has appealed this decision to everyone from the Boettcher school principal to Supt. Joseph Brzeinski. LAST WEEK MRS. JACOBY received a letter containing the school officials’ final decision. Debbie could not be allowed to continue to attend Boettcher. But the letter, from James M. O'Hara, executive director of the Department of Pupil Services, suggested that other alternatives existed for Debbie at the Cerebral Palsy Center,the Emily Griffith Opportunity School and at private community agencies. "None of these alternatives are adequate". Mrs. Jacoby said Wednesday in front of the board's headquarters. "They do not meet Debbie's needs. Debbie is not ready for the Opportunity School, but she needs more than the Cerebral Palsy Center can offer. “For 21 years, I’ve put up with empty answers from school officials. I’ve talked and talked to people whose minds are already made up. They aren’t used to persons like Debbie living independently. They're used to them being institutionalized. Debbie can do better than that and I want her to have that chance.”
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The Selma of handicapped rights By Melanie Tem One recent Sunday morning, Kathy Vincent, a 41-year-old Denver woman with cerebral palsy, decided to go to church. She left her apartment, which she had just moved into after spending years in a nursing home, and propelled herself to a No.15 bus stop downtown. She saw "what looked like a wheelchair bus" approaching, and prepared to board it via the hydraulic lift. Instead, the driver told her the lift had been disconnected and, "this isn't a wheelchair bus anymore." The next wheelchair-accessible bus would arrive, he told her, in 30 minutes. "By that time," Vincent later recalled, "church would have been over." That incident has made Vincent a sympathizer with the more militant of Denver's disabled community - led principally by the Atlantis Community and HAIL(Holistic Approaches to Independent Living) - who are demanding that Regional Transportation District dramatically increase the number of wheelchair-accessible buses in its system. Specifically, they want the 89 new "articulated" buses on order to be equipped with wheelchair lifts, and have filed a lawsuit to force the issue. Articulated buses aren't suitable for conversion to wheelchair accessibility, according to RTD spokesman Kathy Joyce. Since they can carry more passengers and travel at higher speeds - their articulated (bendable) design allows them to take corners faster - they are intended for use on heavily traveled express routes. Joyce estimates it takes 5 to 7 minutes to load a passenger in a wheelchair, and another 5 to 7 minutes for unloading - delays which RTD considers unacceptable in a high-speed, efficient transportation system. FOR STEVE SAUNDERS, the issues go beyond personal convenience and articulated buses. Saunders, 31, also has cerebral palsy. He lives alone in a Capitol Hill apartment and works at HAIL. Saunders, along with other demonstrators assembled in RTD offices a few months ago, protested the board's decision to order the articulated buses without wheelchair lifts. Demonstrators blocked stairways and chained themselves to doors, to dramatize their point they said. Saunders was the only demonstrator to accept a summons from the police, an action which guaranteed a day in court. Last month he got his day, but had little opportunity to express his views, as the charges against him were dismissed. But, he said later he views the conflict as “a clear human rights issue. What we're demanding is equal access to public transportation, just like everybody else." Many bus drivers and able-bodied passengers seem skeptical about this view of the situation. While all sides in the dispute agree that so far public reaction to the wheelchair-accessible buses has been positive, there seems to be some sentiment now that the activists have gone too far. Several drivers put it this way: "They keep saying they want to be treated like ordinary people, when the fact is they're not ordinary people and they'd better accept that." Attitudes like that are, said Wade Blank of the Atlantis Community, disturbingly reminiscent of earlier civil rights struggles. He calls Denver, "the Seima of the handicapped rights movement." Similar battles have been or are being waged in Los Angeles, St. Louis, Washington, D.C., and other cities across the country by the handicapped. The 90 percent accessible transportation in Seattle is lauded as proof of what can be done. Blank, who is able-bodied, thinks of himself as a "liberator," and contends the issue of full accessible public transportation is critical as disabled people across the nation organize and develop their power. RTD's Joyce, whose younger sister Heannie is disabled and a member of Atlantis, seems to echo this perspective when she says, "We feel that all this has less to do with RTD’s commitment to accessibility, which goes back a long way and hasn't changed, and less to do with articulated buses than with politics and economics." As corporations bring new money into Denver, she says, Atlantis and HAIL are moving to ensure that disabled citizens will be taken seriously. "They're making a statement," she says. "We understand that. But we can't allow it to change what we do." RTD, she says, is committed to making half of its entire system wheelchair-accessible by July of this year. ANOTHER POLITICAL FACTOR is RTD's first board election, to be held in November. Members of the disabled community are interviewing candidates to determine their willingness to support issues of concern to that constituency. HAlL's Saunders already has announced his candidacy. In other cities, much has been made of the low usage of wheelchair-accessible vehicles by the disabled. RTD's records indicate that of a total 160,000 rides per average day, disabled riders average between 90 and 260 per week. Neither RTD nor the disabled seem alarmed by this fact. Training, they agree, is the key. Saunders and others provide one-on-one training in bus riding to disabled passengers, and RTD trains both drivers and potential passengers. Both sides also seem willing to be patient with the equipment failures that plague any intricate mechanical apparatus. The issue ls complex, emotional and, for the disabled, very personal. Says Kathy Vincent, who can't travel anywhere on her own and has to rely completely on wheelchair-accessible buses: “l never was militant before. But now l don’t have any choice."
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The Denver Post 12/2/81 Two photos by The Denver Post / Anthony Suau: First photo: A young man with CP in a wheelchair in a jacket and flannel shirt, his head thrown back, speaks in a microphone that is being held by another man standing slightly behind his chair. Both men are looking intensely at someone or something to their left. Behind them is another person, as if in line. Second photo: An older man in a suit sits behind a table with a microphone. His fingers and thumb are lightly pressed together and to his lips, and his eyes are looking ahead. His expression shows he is listening, taking in information. The two pictures are set so that it appears the man in the suit is listening to the man in the wheelchair testifying. Caption reads: Wheelchair Rights Left [first photo], handicapped persons, including Barry Gin, left, met with Regional Transportation District officials Tuesday to discuss the use of wheelchair lifts on buses. Holding the microphone for Gin is Eloy Espinoza. Above [second photo], Lowell Hutson, RTD board chairman listens as members of disabled community argue that not putting wheelchair lifts on the new buses is a violation of their civil rights. Story on Page 4-B.
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Billings Gazette 6/15/83 Disabled learn persuasion tactics by ROGER CLAWSON, of the Gazette Staff Disabled persons have a right to ride public buses, and — with a bit of political savvy - they can enforce that right. That was the message Wade Blank, a Denver handicapped association activist, brought the Montana Independent Living Project conference in Billings Tuesday. Blank said it would cost $180,000 to equip Billings’s Met transit system buses with wheelchair lifts. The federal government would pay 80 percent of that cost. Blank said public buildings have been made accessible to handicapped persons, public transportation should also be accessible. He outlined how his group, the Atlantis Community, fought to make the Denver bus system provide wheelchair lifts and suggested tactics to those who would make the Met accessible to handicapped: * Lobby for support. In Denver, Blank said, major churches endorsed the Atlantis crusade. * Build public awareness. Because handicapped people are unable to ride the buses, they are never seen by bus drivers or transit officials. Blank suggested putting a person in a wheelchair on every bus to spend the day riding and handing out literature calling for equal access. * Lawsuits may be needed to force public officials to explain how federal money, given with certain strings attached, has been spent. * Serve notice that you won’t be bought off with special transportation systems. “They do not run special buses for blacks,” Blank said, "they should not be allowed to segregate the handicapped.” Participants of the conference noted that the only transportation available to the handicapped in Billings is furnished by Special Transportation Inc. (STI), a private, non-profit corporation that provides transportation for the elderly and handicapped under contract. Use of STI by handicapped adults is confined to trips for medical appointments.
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Name of newspaper illegible Los Angeles Times? November 19,1984 Handicapped Stage Protests to Publicize Transportation Needs by Miles Harvey, Times Staff Writer PHOTO: Mary Frampton / Los Angeles Times A tidy looking woman in pants and a vest, with a slight smile on her face, sits in a manual wheelchair on a bus. She is sitting in the accessible doorway, the access symbol visible on the side of the doorway. Below and beneath her is a metal panel, like the barrier on some lifts that keeps the person from rolling off the front of the lift. Caption reads: Barbara Trigg rides a hydraulic lift onto a Los Angeles bus. Article reads: Washington -- It was a scene reminiscent of the 1960s civil rights demonstrations as angry protesters chanted slogans, picketed the White House and stopped traffic before they were finally dragged away by police. And the series of confrontations that ended with 27 arrests last month seemed to come down to a similar central issue— the right to sit on a bus, to have full access to public transportation. There was one striking difference, however. Unlike Rosa Parks and the black civil rights activist who battered down the Jim Crow barriers in the South, these protesters were in wheelchairs, and their goal was equal access for the physically handicapped. “It's a civil right to be able to ride public transportation," said Julia Haraksin, a wheelchair-bound Los Angeles resident who participated in the demonstrations. “In the ‘60s, the blacks had to ride in the back—and we can't even get on the buses." New, Radical Tactics Organizations representing handicapped persons long have urged Washington to require that new buses and rail systems built with funds from the Department of Transportation's Urban Mass Transportation Administration be equipped to accommodate handicapped riders. But Haraksin and other handicapped individuals like her now are beginning to press the old arguments with new, more radical tactics. Frustrated by years of negotiating, lobbying in Washington, going through the courts and staging non-confrontational protests, some members of the handicapped community now are resorting more actively to confrontations and civil disobedience. Thus, early in October, 100 members of a newly formed coalition called American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit confronted a national meeting of city transportation heads here, using the kind of civil disobedience tactics used 30 years earlier by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Protesters were arrested when they blocked entrances and buses of those attending the American Public Transit Assn. convention. The strategy was to physically be a barrier because handicapped people have to face barriers all their lives," Wade Blank, a founder of Denver-based ADAPT said. Calling the protests here " Selma," leaders of ADAPT claimed victory and promised that their struggle has only begun. They already are focusing their efforts on what they hope will be a larger demonstration at the next meeting of the American Public Transportation Assn. a year from now in Los Angeles. But they and their cause may be in for a tough battle. Their opposition comes from the Reagan Administration, from many city governments and even from within the handicapped community. And as public attention focuses on the underlying budget choices involved, the opposition may swell with the addition of taxpayers concerned about the possible costs of a national full-access program. ADAPT argues that a legal right to full access for the handicapped already exists. Federal law states that Urban Mass Transportation Administration funds — which account for about 80% of the costs of new and replacement equipment in most municipal transportation systems—cannot be spent on programs that discriminate against, or exclude, the handicapped. The law does not make clear, however, whether handicapped persons must be provided with access to regular bus lines or whether they can instead be provided with alternative transportation systems. Nor does it indicate who should make that decision. Cities Make Decisions Current Transportation Department policy, which is strongly supported by the American Public Transportation Assn., allows each city to make its own decision on what type of transportation it will provide for the handicapped. This is in sharp contrast with Carter Administration policy, which in 1979 interpreted federal regulation to mean full access. Members of ADAPT, opposing the separate-but-equal philosophy of paratransit argue that it does not meet the needs of the handicapped and that it is inherently discriminatory. "It segregates the disabled people from the able-bodied community," Mike Auberger, an organizer for ADAPT, said. Because paratrasit requires advanced scheduling [unreadable] a ride is needed, he said, “you have to schedule your life according to the system. No one else has to do that. That shows the inequality right there." He and other members of ADAPT contend that because of long waiting lists for paratransit, some cities refuse to offer the service to new users - thus cutting off thousands of handicapped persons from any public transportation. Transit authorities, on the other hand, argue that full access can be too expensive, given the low percentage of handicapped riders in many cities. Lift-fitted buses cost an estimated $8,000 to $10,000 more than regular buses. Furthermore, lift systems are often unreliable and time-consuming to operate and maintain, transit administrators say. In Denver, for example, the transportation district has spent $63 million to purchase or retrofit buses with lifts. 80% of which was paid for by the federal government, according to spokesman Gene Towne. Since it started mainline access in 1982, the district has spent close to $1 million in maintenance of the lifts and expects to spend an additional $900,000 this year. Yet of the district's total annual ridership of 38 million, only 12,000 use the lifts, according to Towne. ADAPT counters that the issue is not cost but civil liberties. “In America we have a way of hiding, our prejudices with pragmatism," said Blank, a Presbyterian minister and veteran of the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1960s who now supports handicapped activists. Variety of Approaches Across the country, cities are using a variety of approaches to the problems of providing mass transit for the handicapped. In Los Angeles, mainline access is required by state law. Although 1,850 of the Southern California Rapid Transit District‘s 2,400 buses are fitted with wheelchair lifts some local advocates charge that the RTD gives only "lip service" to access, complaining of broken lifts, drivers who do not know how to use the equipment or refuse to do so and an overall lack of commitment to providing access. The system provides only about 1,400 rides a month according to the RTD. Handicapped activists charge that the low ridership is attributable to the system's poor management. There were and are people in the operation department (of the RTD) back there who were and are opposed to the idea of access from day one," Dennis Cannon, a Washington-based expert who helped to plan the RTD's access program in the 1970s said. But in the last six months, the RTD has made "a major effort" to overcome the problem, according to RTD General Manager John A. Dyer. The system boosted its fiscal year 1985 budget for handicapped service by $3 million, to $4.9 million, to provide for a program to educate drivers and upgrade the quality of equipment and service. In Oakland, half the city's 800 buses are lift-equipped and all of the Alameda — Contra Costa Transit District's new buses will be lift-equipped. Seattle’s Services In Seattle, 570 of 1,100 buses are accessible to the handicapped, providing about 5,900 rides a month. The Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle also contracts with private groups to supply paratransit bus and half-fare cab service, providing a total of 8,400 rides a month in Denver. 432 of the city's 744 buses are lift- or ramp-equipped, providing more than 1,000 rides per month. The city also uses 13 vans and small buses in a paratransit system that provides 3,200 rides a month. In New York City, where an estimated 35% of all the transit passengers in the country use Metropolitan Transportation Authority vehicles each day. half of the city's 4,333 buses are fitted with lifts. The city has no figures on how many handicapped riders use the system, but one official calls the number minuscule. A new state law calls for $40 million over the next eight years to retrofit “in the neighborhood of 30" subway stops for handicapped use, according to a transit authority official. In addition the law will increase the percentage of lift-equipped buses to 65% of the fleet, as well as provide a paratransit system in the city by 1988. Minneapolis-St. Paul uses 45 paratransit buses and contracts with private cab companies to carry handicapped persons in all, the city provides 40.000 trips a month. None of Chicago's 2.400 regular buses are fitted with lifts. Instead the city provides 42 paratransit buses, which offer 12,000 rides a month. Additionally, 14 of the city's subway stops have been retrofitted for handicapped access and 300 of Chicago's 1,100 subway cars are accessible. If there is a diversity of approaches to the problem, there is also a diversity of views on the militant new tactics used by ADAPT and its supporters. The views of the handicapped people are all over the lot on what type of transport they'd like," Bob Batchelder, counsel for the APTA, said. But transit specialist Cannon, himself a wheelchair user, counters: “I'm talking to disabled people who wouldn't do what ADAPT does ... but who support what they are doing and think it needs being done." Whether ADAPT's controversial style will work remains an open question. While no negotiations are scheduled, ADAPT leaders vow to continue to harass association meetings. But in Los Angeles, the RTD's Dyer indicated that he hopes demonstrations will be replaced at next year's convention with “serious dialogue and discussion of the issues." "It’s a new thing for the disabled to see themselves with power," ADAPT's Auberger said, "but it's also a new experience for the powers that be."
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The Washington Post, Friday, September 28, 1934 PHOTO (by Harry Naltchayan, The Washington Post): Three men in wheelchairs (left to right - Claude Holcomb, Bob Conrad, and Mike Auberger) discuss something as they block two Metro buses sitting next to each other. Caption reads: Handicapped demonstrators block Metrobuses on Pennsylvania Avenue NW. [Headline] Buses Captured In Demonstration By Handicapped By Ronald Kessler, Washington Post Staff Writer A dozen handicapped protesters, some in wheelchairs and others walking with crutches or canes, stopped rush-hour traffic in front of the White House yesterday by "capturing" seven Metrobuses. The hour-long protest was aimed at demonstrating the lack of access to buses that handicapped persons endure both locally and nationwide. The demonstrators agreed to release the buses—by abandoning their position in front of the vehicles—only after Metro General Manager Carmen E. Turner agreed to meet with them. The demonstrators. representing a national group called American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit, said they wanted all new Metrobuses to be equipped with power equipment that lifts wheelchairs into buses. AIso, they said, they want the Department of Transportation to allocate more funds for equipping buses nationwide with the lifts. "We say it's a civil right, just as they denied black people the right to get on a bus and now allow them access." said Mike Auberger of Denver, a spokesman for the group. “It's a right like being able to go to school." Presently, Metro schedules a limited number of runs with buses equipped with lifts, or dispatches the buses if a handicapped person requests on the day before. The protesters said a lift costs $8,000 on a $180,000 new bus. an amount they said is far below the cost of an air conditioner. "I’ve called for buses, and they break down said Ronald L. Smith, who sat in a wheelchair in front of the Old Executive Office Building. "We want all the buses to be for the handicapped." Beverly Silverburg, director of public affairs for Metro, said last night that the group will meet with Assistant General Manager Theodore Weigle and Turner "will probably meet with the group." The protest began at 1:15 p.m., when the demonstrators announced to reporters that they were going to surround the next bus that stopped in front of the White House. It happened to be one marked "Brookland." Several demonstrators lay down on the street or leaned against the front of the bus while supporting themselves on crutches. A second contingent blocked another bus that had just pulled up behind the first. "What's going on?" Theodore R. Wright, the driver of the Brookland bus, said to no one in particular. The protesters told him they wanted to meet with Turner to present their grievances. As riders disembarked, Wright called his dispatcher. "I'm looking at two buses that are blocked," he said "They want Carmen Turner." Wright said he once drove a bus equipped with a power lift for six months and never had a handicapped rider. But he added, "l sympathize with these people. Probably they have some legitimate beefs." As the impasse dragged on, the protesters took over a third bus as it was trying to pass the first two. Police persuaded the protesters to let it go, but they became more agitated and began blocking buses across the street in front of Lafayette Square. By 5 p.m., police had cordoned off the section of Pennsylvania Avenue NW in front of the White House, disrupting rush-hour traffic in all directions. Metro supervisors came and went, and one protester was taken to George Washington Hospital after he fell off his wheelchair. By 5:30 p.m., the protesters had corralled seven buses, would-be passengers were complaining that they could not find a bus, and bus drivers were lining the streets. At 5:35 pm., D.C. Police Lt. W.R. Sarvis passed the word that Turner had agreed to the meeting. The demonstrators uttered whoops of joy and hugged each other. “No confrontations, no problems," said Sarvis. The protesters said they also plan to present their demands to the American Public Transit Association, which meets here Sunday.
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Los Angeles Times 4/10/85 PHOTO by Vince Compagnone, Los Angeles Times: A Trailways bus sits surrounded by half a dozen or more people in wheelchairs. One man in a manual chair with a golf style cap sits alone at the back left corner of the bus. One the right side of the bus, closest to the camera are three other people in manual chairs. They appear to be talking with Bob Conrad and a few others up at the front right side of the bus, by the entrance. Renata Conrad is in the white coat. On the back of the bus is a sign that reads "Got a Group? Charter this Bus. 1-800-527-1566." Caption reads: Handicapped people surround a Trailways bus Saturday, delaying its departure by two hours. [Headline] Disabled People Block Bus at Terminal by Kathleen H. Cooley, Times Staff Writer About 20 disabled people blocked a Trailways bus for more than two hours Saturday at the downtown terminal until the terminal manager agreed to ask a company executive to meet with the disabled group concerning difficulties wheelchair-bound people have with bus travel. The group which represents American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation (ADAPT), was in town to meet with members of the American Public Transit Assn. today. Representatives of ADAPT said they want a legislation requiring all new buses operated by private companies such as Greyhound and Trailways to be equipped with wider doors, lifts and ramps. Most public transportation operators, including San Diego Transit, provide wheelchair lifts on at least some buses. ADAPT member Claude Holcom bought a ticket to Los Angeles, but when Trailways' personnel told him they would have to fold his wheelchair and carry him to his seat, Holcom declined to board the bus. "We don't think a person should have to be carried aboard a bus," said Wade Blank, one of the protest's organizers. “It's very dehumanizing. They’re taking away their legs." Blank and fellow ADAPT member Mike Auberger said the group is trying to draw attention to the frustrations of traveling by bus and being in a wheelchair. Although both Trailways and Greyhound buses are not equipped to handle wheelchairs, Blank said ADAPT met with Greyhound officials last week to discuss the possibility of fitting new buses with lifts. “This is a symbolic protest, just like the civil rights protests of the '60s, but we have the right to travel the same as anybody else," Blank said. "The wheelchair is like somebody's legs." The Los Angeles bus, with its two passengers, was scheduled to leave the C Street station at 4:15 p.m., but by the time terminal manager Fred Kroner arrived and negotiated with the ADAPT members, it was nearly 7 o'clock before it departed. The two passengers appeared surprised and baffled by the protest and by queries from members of the news media. One man opted to go to the Greyhound terminal two blocks away and catch another bus rather than wait out the protest. The other passenger, Mich Galloway, 23, said he was sympathetic to the group wanting equal access to buses and waited patiently until the protesters dispersed. “I see where they are coming from." Galloway said. "I hope something is done about it." After several phone calls to the Trailways corporate offices in Dallas proved fruitless. the ADAPT members agreed to accept from Koner the name, address and phone number of the company‘s public relations officer. who they intend to call Monday. "l really can't do anything about the situation. l'm just this terminal's manager." Koner said.
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Dallas Times Herald, Saturday Nov. 24, 1984 [Headline] Wheelchair activist adopt radical tactics Los Angeles Times WASHINGTON — It was a scene reminiscent of the 1960s civii rights demonstrations as angry protesters chanted slogans, picketed the White House and stopped traffic before they were finally dragged away by police. And the series of confrontations that ended with 27 arrests last month all seemed to come down to a similar central issue —- the right to sit on a bus, to have full access to public transportation. There was one striking difference, however. Unlike Rosa Parks and the black civil rights activists who battered down the Jim Crow barriers in the South, these protesters were in wheelchairs, and their goal was equal access for the physically handicapped. "It's a civil right to be able to ride public transportation," says Julia Haraksin, a wheelchair-bound Los Angeles resident who participated in the demonstrations. Organizations representing handicapped persons long have urged Washington to require that all new buses and rail systems built with funds from the Department of Transportation's Urban Mass Transportation Administration be equipped to accommodate handicapped riders. But Haraksin and other handicapped individuals are beginning to press the old arguments with more radical tactics. Frustrated by years of negotiating, lobbying in Washington, going through the courts and staging non-confrontational protests, some handicapped activists now are resorting to confrontations and civil disobedience. Thus, early in October, 100 members of a newly formed coalition called American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit confronted a national meeting of city transportation heads here, using the kind of civil disobedience tactics used 20 years earlier by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Protesters were arrested when they blocked entrances and buses of those attending the American Public Transit Association convention. “The strategy was to physically be a barrier because handicapped people have to face barriers all their lives," Wade Blank, a founder of Denver-based ADAPT, said. Calling the protests here “our Selma," leaders of ADAPT claimed a public relations victory and promised their struggle has only begun. They already are focusing their efforts on what they hope will be a larger demonstration at the next meeting of the American Public Transportation Association a year from now in Los Angeles. But their cause may be in for a tough battle. Their opposition comes from the Reagan administration, from many city governments and even from within the handicapped community. And as public attention focuses on the underlying budget choices involved, the opposition may swell with the addition of taxpayers concerned about the possible costs of a national full-access program. ADAPT argues a legal right to full access for the handicapped already exists. Federal law states Urban Mass Transportation Administration funds — which account for about 80 percent of the costs of the equipment in most municipal transportation systems —- cannot be spent on programs that discriminate against, or exclude, the handicapped. The law does not make clear, however, whether handicapped persons must be provided with access to regular bus lines or whether they can instead be provided with alternative transportation systems. Nor does it indicate who should make that decision. Current Department of Transportation policy, which is strongly supported by the American Public Transportation Association, allows each city to make its own decision on what type of transportation it will provide for the handicapped. This is in sharp contrast with Carter administration policy, which in 1979 interpreted federal regulations to mean full access. Members of ADAPT, opposing the separate-but-equal philosophy, argue that paratransit does not meet the needs of the handlcapped and is inherently discriminatory. “lt segregates the disabled people trom the able-bodied community," Mike Auberger, an organizer for ADAPT, said. Because paratransit requires advanced scheduling, sometimes weeks before a ride is needed, he said, “you have to schedule your life according to the transit system." Transit authorities, on the other hand, argue full access can be too expensive, given the low percentage of handicapped riders in many cities. Lift-fitted buses cost an estimated $8,000 to $10,000 more than regular buses. Furthermore, lift systems are often unreliable and time-consuming to operate and maintain, authorities add. In Denver, for example, the transportation district has spent $6.3 million to purchase or retrofit buses with lifts, 80 percent of which was paid for by the federal government, according to spokesman Gene Towne. Since it started mainline access in 1982, the district has spent close to $1 million in maintenance of the lifts and expects to spend an additional $900,000 this year. Yet only 12,000 of the district's 38 million riders use the lifts, according to Towne. ADAPT counters the issue is not cost but civil liberties. "In America, we have a way of hiding our prejudices with pragmatism," said Blank, a Presbyterian minister and veteran of the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1960s who now supports handicapped activists. Across the country, cities are using a variety of approaches to the problems of providing mass transit for the handicapped. ln Los Angeles, mainline access is required by state law. Although 1,850 of the Southern California Rapid Transit District's 2,400 buses are fitted with wheelchair lifts, some local advocates charge that broken lifts, drivers who do not know how to use the equipment or refuse to do so and an overall lack of commitment to providing access limits the system. [Bottom of the page is torn so missing text is included in brackets, as it is just a guess.] In Seattle, 570 of 1,100 buses serve the handicapped, providing about 5,900 rides a month. [The] Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle also contracts with groups to supply paratransit [vans] and half-fare cab service, [providing] 8,400 rides a month. In Denver, 432 of the [city's] buses are lift- or ramp-[equipped] providing more than 1,00[0 rides] per month. The city also [uses] vans and small buses in a transit system that provides [x number of] rides a month. None of Chicago's 2,400 [mainline] buses is fitted with lifts. [Instead] the city provides 42 [paratransit] buses, which offer 12,000 [rides per] month.