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Home / އަލްބަމްތައް / ޓެގުތައް Wade Blank
+ Atlantis Community 37
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Rocky Mountain News Friday, May 7, 1982 All RTD routes to serve disabled By Jerry Brown News-Staff Regional Transportation District officials plan to provide wheelchair-accessible service on all RTD routes beginning next month, fulfilling a commitment made three years ago. “As far as I know, we are the first in the country to get this far,” in providing bus service for the physically handicapped, said district spokeswoman Kathy Joyce. About 150 rides a week currently are taken by handicapped passengers on the 10 routes in Denver, two in Boulder and all routes in Longmont that offer wheelchair-accessible service, Joyce said, with a peak weekly ridership of 270. The expansion of accessible service follows completion of the installation of wheelchair lifts on 186 AM General buses purchased by RTD in 1977 and 1978. RTD purchased 127 new buses from General Motors of Canada, and RTD also has 33 older buses that had been previously equipped with lifts, giving the agency 346 lift-equipped buses out of a total fleet of 671. RTD spent $3,882,222 - or $20,872 per bus - retrofitting the AM General buses, Joyce said. RTD doesn't have cost figures for the lifts on the new buses, which were delivered early last year. The cost of lifts on those buses was included in the $15.5 million purchase price, Joyce said. Beginning June 6, half of all rush-hour buses and all off-peak buses will be wheelchair accessible, RTD Executive Director L.A. Kimball said. Wade Blank, co-director of the Atlantis Community for the handicapped, said his organization is pleased with the proposed new service. RTD also has promised a public relations program to promote the new service, another longtime Atlantis goal, Blank said. Atlantis filed a lawsuit in 1977 and staged a series of demonstrations in 1977, 1978 and 1979 in efforts to force RTD to make its regular routes accessible to the handicapped. In mid-1979, RTD agreed to make all its routes wheelchair accessible after the U.S. Department of Transportation issued national regulations requiring that half of all rush-hour buses be wheelchair-accessible by July 1982. The federal regulations were rescinded last year, but RTD agreed to meet its earlier commitment, anyway. Earlier Atlantis held more demonstrations to protest RTD’s decision not to put wheelchair lifts on 89 new buses scheduled for delivery next year. Atlantis is challenging that decision in Denver District Court. RTD became one of the first transit agencies in the United States to offer wheelchair-accessible service on regular routes last June when it began providing such service on some of its busier routes.
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August 1982 Early Surveys Show a Positive Response to RTD Accessibility EARLY INDICATIONS are proving that accessible bus routes will attract many disabled riders. According to unofficial count along the major Denver routes there is a 78 percent increase in the number of riders who previously has been forced to shun public transit. “The response is encouraging,” said Wade Blank, director of the Atlantis Community and a longtime proponent for RTD modification. “But it will take a bit more time for the word to spread to some 16,000 Denver residents who use wheelchairs.” At the HAIL, Inc. office, co-proponents in the long squabble to convince RTD officials of the practical aspects of accessible routes, incoming mail and phone calls are revealing gratification and relief from many sectors of the handicapped community. In one of the letters, Molly Henderson writes: “As the mother of a disabled daughter who uses a wheelchair, I would like to thank the members of the disabled community who fought so hard and won the right to ride the bus whenever and wherever my daughter wishes.” Mark Johnson, Independent Living Coordinator, HAIL, Inc., for several disabled residents at the Halcyon House, reflects, “It’s obvious this RTD decision was need and appropriate. Many other similar decisions can also have a significant impact on the quality of life for persons with disabilities.” A disabled bus rider states, “The service is absolutely wonderful. It is more convenient a less time consuming to have busses with lifts. It helps me do my job more efficiently. And, so far, the attitude of drivers and the public is excellent.” Theresa Preda, HAIL’s executive director, says, “We still have a long way to go. I think it is an achievement the disabled community can rightly be proud of. Now, hopefully, this advancement may help indicate to others that there are still many areas that are still inaccessible, needing revision to meet the RTD initiative.”
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The Denver Post Friday, Dec. 18, 1981 [Headline] Handicapped Will Protest RTD Wheelchair-Lift Ban By George Lane Denver Urban Affairs Writer The board of directors of the Regional Transportation District Thursday made it official – there will be no wheelchair lifts on 89 high-capacity buses expected to be delivered in 1983. The board actually decided a month ago there would be no lifts on the new buses, but they have been hedging on finalizing that action because of objections voiced by the area’s disabled community. Following the vote on the lifts, Wade Blank, co-administrator for the Atlantis Community for the disabled and organizer of the protest against the RTD action, told the transit directors that members of the handicapped community view the action as a violation of their human rights and they will respond to that violation Jan. 4. Blank later said members of the disabled community will be in “training for civil disobedience” between now and Jan. 4. He said beginning Jan. 4, 10 disabled persons in wheelchairs will stage a sit-in in the office of L.A. “Kim” Kimball, RTD’s executive director and general manager. “Everyday during the month of January, 10 disabled people will be occupying Kimball’s office,” Blank said. They won’t have any able-bodied people with them – and if they’re arrested they will be replaced by 10 more. At the conclusion of the board meeting, Kimball told the directors that the RTD staff will take steps to try to prevent this action, but he doesn’t think it proper to discuss those steps at this time. The RTD board during its Nov. 19 meeting voted to save more than a million dollars by not ordering the lifts on the new buses. The RTD staff recommended this action because they said the lifts are expensive (more than $12,000 per bus) and difficult to maintain. The staff proposal was to use the articulated buses on high ridership bus routes, freeing regular buses with wheelchair lifts to provide better service for the handicapped. A delegation from the handicapped community objected to this proposal, with arguments that RTD officials had promised several years ago that 50 percent of the district’s bus fleet would be made accessible to wheelchair-bound riders and all new buses would be ordered with lifts. About 25 disabled persons from Atlantis staged a wheelchair-bound sit-in following the November meeting until Kimball and three board members promised to attempt to get the entire board to reconsider the action. Thursday’s vote was the outcome of that promise.
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The Denver Post Denver Post PHOTO: A thin young man (Mike Smith) lies in bed wrapped in sheets. His long dark hair is laid out on the pillow above his head, and his dark eyebrows, beard and moustache frame his features. He looks with a burning intensity up and someone (mostly out of the picture), who is holding a book. caption reads: MIKE SMITH WATCHES AS AN ATTENDANT READS SOME OF HIS POEMS. He is confined to bed at Atlantis Community, which was plagued by foulups. [Headline] MIKE SMITH'S' DREAM [Subheading] Atlantis Battles Delay, Foulups By FRED GILLIES Denver Post Staff Writer "Realize...Realize..." The words came in a strange, guttural tone from the young man lying semiconscious on the bed, breathing life-giving oxygen through tubes running from a tank nearby. Mike Smith, 21, had been severely drained by the ravages of muscular dystrophy, his grim companion since birth. Yet, early last week as Mike lay unconscious for the third day, he seemed to radiate a private kind of peace and serenity in this small bedroom overlooking a busy Denver highway. Realize. . . For Mike Smith, realization of the promise and the hope of freedom for himself and seven other handicapped persons came when they became the first residents of the Atlantis Community, opened June 1 at the Las Casitas Housing Development in southwest Denver. At Las Casitas, in a pioneering experiment in personal fulfillment, they reside in their own apartments, set their own rules, and, as far as the handicapped can, manage their own lives. Gently, an attendant stroked Mike’s forehead, bent near him and whispered words which only he might have heard. His mother, Mrs. Joanne Davis, stood nearby and said Mike had “come home” to the place where he wanted to be, to the freedom he had sought so long for himself and other handicapped persons. But a threat to this hard-won freedom arose shortly after Atlantis was started. Mike and four other handicapped persons at Atlantis found they had become victims of the slow-moving, computerized bureaucracy of the federal Social Security Administration. And unnecessary hardships and worry had been created for the Atlantis residents by on incredible delay on the part of the U.S. postal system in Denver and the acknowledged poor judgment of a Lakewood nursing home. Mike and the four other Atlantis residents were depending heavily on their Social Security checks to pay for their food, rent, attendants’ services and other expenses at Atlantis. But these checks didn't arrive on time early in June. Atlantis officials obtained some emergency financial help, partly through Denver's food stamp office, but it wasn't enough. And one day early last week, an attendant at Atlantis was trying to plan a dinner meal which he hoped would cost about 40 cents for each Atlantis resident. But it shouldn't have come to this point of desperation. [Subheading] PLANNED CAREFULLY Mike, other Atlantis residents and staff members had planned carefully for this major change in their lives. In mid-May, they had contacted the Social Security Administration in Lakewood, detailing their plans and indicating they would be leaving their nursing home and beginning a new way of life. This change would make them eligible for higher Social Security payments to meet their increased expenses. Social Security officials in Lakewood accepted this information for input in the administration's national computer. And at that time, a Social Security official at the Lakewood office also advised the handicapped persons to file change-of-address cards with the Denver Post Office. If this were done, the official said, the handicapped persons' Social Security checks would be sent on time to Atlantis, rather than being held up at the nursing home which most of the eight handicapped persons would be leaving June 1. Wade Blank, Atlantis‘ co-director, took completed change-of-address cards for all future Atlantis residents to the South Denver postal station, three days before the changes were to take effect. And a South Denver postal employee said there should be "no problem" in forwarding the handicapped persons' Social Security checks to Atlantis early in June. [Subheading] SYSTEM FAILED But from that point, the system failed miserably. Four Social Security checks for Atlantis residents weren't forwarded to them at their Atlantis address early this month, but went instead to their old address at the Heritage House Nursing Care Center in Lakewood. A Heritage House clerk, although aware of the handicapped persons move to Atlantis, sent three of the checks back to the U.S. Treasury in Birmingham, causing computer delays [unreadable] in issuance [unreadable] checks. [unreadable] Social Security [unreadable] up at a garage [unreadable] street from Atlantis. This check either had been addressed incorrectly at Heritage House or delivered by the postman to the wrong address. An employee at the garage [unreadable] carried the check to Atlantis. [unreadable]the long postal [unreadable] involving the [unreadable] change of address cards. It took 13 days [unreadable] cards to make the 10 min journey from the South Denver postal station to the Belmar station by way of the post office's Terminal Annex. At Belmar, employes didn't follow postal regulations and send these cards immediately to Heritage House. This was not done until June 12, after an Atlantis representative contacted Belmar postal officials about the check delays. Responding to Denver Post inquiries, postal officials said they couldn’t explain the 13-day delay. [Subheading] RETURNED CHECK Another handicapped person, at Heritage House and then at Craig Rehabilitation Center before coming to Atlantis, didn't receive his Social Security check for June because Heritage House sent his May check back to the U.S. Treasury. This action placed the handicapped person's file "in suspense"- delaying issuance of future checks. Local postal and Social Security officials have told The Post they are -"distressed" over these situations. "It shouldn't have happened... I agree with this 100 per cent," said Thomas O'Halloran, administrator at Heritage House. But he said the Heritage House clerk was “just following my orders" to return checks to the sender when no forwarding address is available. However, O'Halloran acknowledged that the clerk knew of the Atlantis project and knew that the former Heritage House residents had gone to Atlantis. The clerk's judgment to send the checks back to the U.S. Treasury, rather than to Atlantis, "was not proper at that time," O'Halloran said. [Subheading] EVERYTHING 'COVERED’.. Everett Caldwell, branch manager of the Social Security office in Lakewood, said he thought “everything was covered" when the change-of-address cards were filed with the post office for the Atlantis residents. "We thought their checks would simply be forwarded," he said. But when the checks went to Heritage House, the nursing home should have contacted his office, Caldwell said." "And we should have clued in Heritage House—but we didn't do it,” Caldwell added. He acknowledged that Atlantis residents had given him data in time to make their increased Social Security payments. But Social Security's national computer, he explained, is set up so that it couldn't accept this data until June 1. when the change in the handicapped persons’ living status was to take effect. And that means about a 16-day delay before the checks arrive, he said. The Denver Post Office “knows that something went wrong, but we don't know exactly what it was," said Dick Sealer, the post offices Denver district director for customer services. By the time the change—of-address cards had been delivered tardily by the post office to Heritage House, “the damage had been done"- the checks had been returned to the Treasury, Sealer conceded. [Subheading] STEPS TAKEN Officials at both federal agencies and at Heritage House said late last week that steps have been taken to prevent a recurrence of this situation, and lapses in procedures will be corrected. Meanwhile, through Caldwell’s persistent efforts, three of the Atlantis residents have received part of their Social Security payments for June and other payments are expected to be made soon. Caldwell said, however, that he wished Atlantis had informed him sooner about the check delays. Because of those delays, Atlantis, still in in a precarious financial situation, according to Linda Chism, the project' accountant, funds that Atlantis [unreadable] to its recent drive for founder members were exhausted recently in paying Atlantis attendants’ salaries, she said. And she stresses that there still is a desperate need for donations from other persons who wish to become founder members of Atlantis, headquartered at 1232 Federal Boulevard. [Subheading] MIKE'S BATTLE For Mike Smith, it is a touch-and-go battle. Early last week, he regained consciousness and greeted his mother, with a cheerful “Hi, Mom!" By late last week, Mike still was confined to bed at Atlantis and still was using an oxygen tank to ease his breathing. Other medical assistance was being provided to Mike. But no matter what happens, Mike said then, Atlantis will succeed, because persons in this group have the driving desire to make it succeed. This intense desire is reflected in much of the highly imaginative and deeply moving poetry Mike has written over the years-- poetry which fills five notebooks. In the opening of one of these poems, Mike wrote of a final journey. But there also is something here which tells of his strong and enduring commitment to Atlantis and to those working so hard for its success. In this poem, Mike wrote: “I feel my spirit surging inside, Speeding and whirling along, Like a mighty March wind, blasting into April, Making the trees bow low for the royalty of the wind. Like a child of innocence, I see my dream before me. And I shall surpass any mountain, or ill or death itself . . .“ Photo Denver Post, David Cupp: A woman (Linda Chism) sits in a power chair with a lap board. Her short legs are extended straight in front of her and covered with cloth. She has a big smile, or laugh on her face. Caption reads: LINDA CHISM LAUGHS AS SHE ENJOYS A SPRING DAY. She says delays put Atlantis in precarious situation.
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The Denver Post, Metro section, Tuesday Jan. 5, 1982 2 PHOTOS, The Denver Post / John J Sunderland: First: Through bars that look a bit like the ropes in a boxing ring, a man in a wheelchair (Mark Johnson) sits, chin resting on his hand, and looks on thoughtfully as a police officer writes something on a piece of paper on a surface in front of them. The officer is leaning forward almost over Mark, and Mark looks calm and very thoughtful as he watches. Caption reads: Mark Johnson, 30, was one of two protesters cited Monday at Regional Transportation District offices. He later left and was not charged. Second photo: In a brick covered room, a person in a wheelchair has his back to the camera and facing a man who is blocking his way. The man standing faces the camera and points toward it. Caption reads: Bob West, Regional Transportation District director of security, tells demonstrator he won't be allowed to obstruct business. Bus Plan Protesters Chain Selves By GEORGE LANE, Denver Urban Affairs Writer Wheelchair-bound protesters chained themselves to stairway railings and blocked the main entrance to local transit offices for about 90 minutes Monday until police removed them from the building. Two persons were cited for trespassing as 13 disabled persons in wheelchairs and about an equal number of attendants and supporters participated in the protest at the offices of the Regional Transportation District. Spokesmen for the group vowed they will return today. The demonstration was organized primarily by members of the Atlantis Community for the disabled and Wade Blank, co-administrator of Atlantis, to protest a decision by the RTD board of directors not to put wheelchair lifts on 89 high-capacity, articulated buses slated to be added to the RTD bus fleet in 1983. RTD officials allowed the demonstrators access to the building at 1600 Blake St. about 11 a.m. and raised no objections as the protesters held a press conference. During the press conference RTD was accused of reneging on a promise and violating the civil rights of the disabled by not ordering the lifts on the new buses. Following the press conference, “out of order" signs on two elevators foiled the group's plan to stage a sit-in at the third floor offices of L.A. "Kim" Kimball, RTD's executive director and general manager. “Kimball is as accessible as his buses," remarked one of the demonstrators. A brief scuffle occurred about 11:20 a.m. when Blank and several attendants attempted to carry three wheelchair occupants up a spiral stairway to Kimball‘s office. Mike Hughes, an RTD security officer, blocked the trip up the steps. The three wheelchairs with their occupants eventually were chained and padlocked to the handrailing of the stairway. Two more wheelchairs later were chained and padlocked to the landing of another stairway. The front entrance to the building was then blocked by five or six motorized wheelchairs as about a dozen policemen waited across the street. Capt. Bill Brannan ordered the demonstrators to leave the building. He then said those refusing to leave the building would be cited and ordered to appear in court it he believed they understood what they were doing. When the policemen and paramedics entered to evacuate the building, only Stephan Saunders, 31, and Mark Johnson, 30, would give their names to police. Both men were given misdemeanor citations for obstructing a government operation and obstructing a public passageway. The charges against Johnson, however, weren't filed because he later decided to leave the building voluntarily.
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Denver Post [This article continues on in ADAPT 123, but the entire text is included here for easier reading.] Photo by Lyn Alweis: A short haired man in a jacket and dark slacks [Mel Conrardy] is lifted in his wheelchair from the sidewalk to a bus. The lift comes out of the front door of the bus and has railings on either side of the lift almost as tall as the seated man. Just by the bus door is a sign on the side of the bus that says "RTD Welcome Aboard." Caption: An RTD bus with wheelchair lift provides mobility for Mel Conrardy Title: Leaders of handicapped rate RTD service best in country By Norm Udevitz, Denver Post Staff Writer Disabled Denverites just a few years ago had as much chance of riding a bus as they did of climbing Mount Everest. “It was brutal the way RTD treated us,” said Mike Auberger, an official in the Atlantis Community, for the disabled and a leader in the fight that has turned the Regional Transportation District’s handicapped service around. In the 1970s and early 1980s, RTD busses then rarely equipped with wheelchair lifts, often left wheelchair-bound riders stranded on streets. Drivers, lacking training in dealing with visually or language impaired people, panicked when blind or deaf riders tried to board buses. “It used to be that even in the dead of winter, when it was below zero, those of us in wheelchairs would wait 2 or 3 hours for a bus to finally stop," Auberger recalls. “And often the lift was broken and we couldn't get on the bus anyway. And usually the drivers were rude and angry. They would tell us that we were ruining their schedules." But conditions have changed, Auberger says: “Right now, Denver has the most accessible public transit system for the handicapped — and all the public - in the country." Debbie Ellis, a state social services worker who heads the agency's Handicapped Advisory Council, agrees, saying: “It took a lot of pressure, but RTD has responded and now the bus system is doing a good job of serving the handicapped." Leaders of national programs for the disabled also agree. In fact, the President's Committee on Employment of the Handicapped will bring 5,000 delegates, many of them handicapped, to its national conference in Denver in April. This will be the first time in four decades the group has held its national session outside of Washington DC. “One of the key reasons we're meeting in Denver this year is because it just might be the most comfortable city in the country for the handicapped,” says Sharon Milcrut, head of the Colorado Coalition for Persons with Disabilities, which is hosting the conference. “A very important aspect of that comfort," she notes, “is how accessible the transit system is for the handicapped.” It didn't get that way easily. In the decade between 1974 and 1984, handicapped activists had to pressure indifferent RTD administrators and directors. Each gain was hard won. “We used every tactic in the book, from lawsuits to bus blockades on the street and sit-ins at the RTD offices," says Wade Blank, an Atlantis group director. “The lawsuits didn't help much but when we took to the streets in the late 1970s, I think that's when we started getting their attention." Blank and others also say the 1984 hiring of Ed Colby as RTD general manager helped. Before he arrived, less than half of the 750 RTD buses had wheelchair lifts, which often were in disrepair. Training for drivers to learn how to deal with handicapped riders was minimal. Agency directors resisted change. RTD relied heavily on a costly special van operation called Handyride - a door-to-door pickup service for handicapped. It has cost $13[? glare makes number hard to read] million to run since it began in 1975. “Over the past couple of years the turnaround has been phenomenal," Auberger says. “All of RTD's new buses are being ordered with lifts and older buses are being retrofitted." By 1986's end, almost 80 percent of the bus fleet — 608 of 765 buses — had wheelchair lifts; 82 percent of the fleet's 6,242 daily trips are now accessible for the disabled. Plans call for the fleet to be 100 percent lift-equipped by 1987's end. “The lifts aren't breaking down all the time now, either," Auberger said, noting that agency officials found drivers had neglected to report broken lifts: “That way the lifts stayed broken and drivers had an excuse for not picking us up. A bunch of people were fired over that and others realized that Colby wasn't kidding about improving handicapped service." Driver training also has improved dramatically. “It isn't perfect yet,” Ellis of the advisory council says. "But everyone is working hard at it. What we are finding is that 20 percent of the drivers understand that they are moving people, all kinds of people, and they're really great with the handicapped. “Another 20 percent figure their job is to move buses and to heck with passengers, all kinds of passengers. That bottom 20 percent probably won't ever change. So we're working real hard on the 60 percent in between," Ellis says. Drivers, for example, learn to help blind riders. “That’s an improvement that helps the disabled, but it also helps regular passengers who are newcomers to the city,” Ellis says. All the improvements haven't come cheap. Since 1974, more than $5million has been spent on lifts and lift maintenance, most of the expense was incurred in the last three years. RTD plans to spend $9 million more in the next six years to keep the fleet up to its current standards and pay for more driver training. Another $4 million will be spent on HandyRide service. Ironically, Auberger and Ellis both say one of the biggest problems remaining is getting more handicapped people to use mass transit. “There are no reliable figures," Ellis says. “But we think there are about 20,000 handicapped people in the metro area and only about 200 or 300 are using buses on a regular basis." Auberger, confined to a wheelchair after breaking his neck in an accident ll years ago, complains: “The medical system builds a bubble around handicapped people and makes them think they have to be protected. "That's just not true in most cases. So one of the things we're doing now is educating the handicapped to overcome their fears. We've finally got a bus system that works for us and we want the disabled to use it." Photo by Lyn Alweis: A rather straight looking man [Mel Conrardy] in a white jacket, big mittens, and a motorized wheelchair, wears a slight smile as he rides the bus. Someone in a dark jacket stands beside him, and behind him, further back on the bus, other riders are sitting on the bus seats. Caption reads: A bus seat folds up to anchor Mel Conrardy's wheelchair to the floor. Conrardy commutes to work at the Atlantis Community.
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The Denver Post - Tuesday October 26, 1976 [Headline] Housing Sought By Handicapped Seven members of the Atlantis Community for the handicapped in Denver have been moved into their own apartments throughout the Denver area, but more apartments are needed, an Atlantis spokesman said Tuesday. Wade Blank, Atlantis codirecter, said the move of the physically disabled into their own apartments increased the independence that Atlantis is attempting to foster among the disabled. One or two-bedroom apartments are needed for Atlantis residents who are confined to wheel chairs, Blank said. The apartments may be furnished or unfurnished, he added. The Atlantis staff, on duty 24 hours daily, visits members of its community who are in their own apartments to make sure that their daily living needs are met. Apartments also are sought for the disabled who are facing loss of their independent living situation unless they can receive services such as Atlantis provides, Blank said. Apartments for the disabled, Blank said, should have doors at least 28 inches wide, an entrance that has no steps or just one or two steps that can be fitted with one of Atlantis' portable ramps. Interested apartment owners, landlords or managers may call Atlantis at 893-8040 between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. weekdays. An Atlantis member will meet with the landlord, and apartments that are suitable will be listed in an apartment guide for the disabled, Blank said.
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Rocky Mountain News 5-18-84 PHOTO (ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS STAFF PHOTO BY DAVID CORNWELL): A large meeting room in a business or hotel type setting. In the foreground a tough looking protester in a wheelchair holds a sign in front of him and looks sideways at the camera. Behind him more protesters in wheelchairs and men in suits stand around not looking at each other. Behind them is a table with 5 other people in wheelchairs sitting at it. Caption reads: Protesters meet with McDonald's representatives, standing from left, Joe Hill, Don Fowler and Dennis Morris. [Headline] McDonald’s officials, disabled to confer by Arnold Levinson, Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer A group of people who have threatened to block selected McDonald's restaurants around the country will meet with the company’s national executives to demand that the chain improve access for handicapped customers. The agreement to hold higher-level discussions was reached Monday in a wheelchair-packed room of the Denver Holiday lnn, where two dozen disabled people bargained for several hours with regional officials of the fast-food company. Both sides said afterward that the McDonald's national marketing and construction directors, as well as the vice president for store licensing, would attend the next meeting, which isn't scheduled yet. The outcome of Monday's meeting suggested that McDonald's is taking seriously the demands - and the threats — of ACCESS, a small, loosely knit coalition of handicapped-advocacy groups nationwide. Last week ACCESS members, most in wheelchairs, picketed two McDonald's restaurants in Denver. Led by members of the Atlantis Community, ACCESS vowed to begin a campaign against McDonald’s in several cities unless certain demands were met. “They can stop this thing from spreading today, or they can stonewall us and it will spread,” the Rev. Wade Blank, Atlantis Community leader, said Monday before the meeting. Jim Parker, a 38-year-old quadriplegic from El Paso, Texas, said afterward that ACCESS wants McDonald’s to promise that: * Entranceways,‘bathrooms and seating in all future outlets be “fully accessible" to the disabled. * Handicapped people appear in 10 percent of the company's advertisements. * The company make restaurants handicapped-accessible within a period yet to be agreed upon. McDonald’s regional officials declined comment Monday beyond saying that negotiations will resume within 30 days to address "the issues brought to our attention today." The regional office oversees operations in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and part of Arizona. The company's national media office failed to respond to a request for information about McDonald's policies toward the handicapped. Behind the decision by ACCESS to target McDonald's are several factors, said Blank, not the least of which is the ripple effect that could occur if an accord is reached with a large, visible symbol of industry. If you can beat the big ones," said Blank, “the others will fall in place.” McDonald’s inaugurated the fast-food industry and leads competitors in the world market. Blank said the move on McDonald’s, which he called “symbolic of free enterprise," also represents a decision to take on the business sector after winning gains, such as bus lifts and curb ramps, from government. He acknowledged that last week's demonstrations were timed to coincide with the presence in Denver of about two dozen disabled people who arrived May 1 to study at the ACCESS Institute. The Atlantis Community uses the institute to teach its methods of advocacy. Alongside these political considerations is criticism of McDonald’s policies toward the handicapped, particularly what Blank called delays in remodeling older stores. “My daughter is in a wheelchair, and I can’t get her to a table," he said of one local McDonald's outlet “The only place she can eat is in the restroom, because it’s accessible."
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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."
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Patricia Schroeder, 1st District, Denver, Colorado Washington Office: 2410 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, D.C. 20515 (202) 225-4431 District Office: 1767 High Street, Denver, Colorado 80218 (303) 837-23 Armed Services Committee Post Office and Civil Service Committee Judiciary Committee Select Committee on Children, Youth and Families Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues, Co-Chair Congress of the United States House of Representatives Washington, D.C. 20515 October 5, 1983 Wade Blank, Michael Berger [sic] Atlantis Community 4536 E. Colfax Denver, Colorado 80220 Dear Wade and Michael: I wrote to Secretary Dole to encourage her to meet with you before addressing the APTA conference later this month. In addition, my aide Maureen Maxwell called Judd Swift at Department of Transportation. He informs us that Mrs. Dole’s scheduling people are working on setting up the meeting. Please let me know if I can be of further help. Sincerely, Patricia Schroeder, Congresswoman PS/mm Encl.
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Rocky Mountain News Sunday Magazine Sunday, May 25, 1986 Column title: people to watch Photo by Dick Davis: Wade Blank is sitting by a window with a rainbow and Atlantis Community painted on the outside so the letters are backward in this picture. There are some plants and some papers on a counter between Wade and the window. Wade has on a plaid button up shirt, his tinted glasses and long blonde hair parted in the middle. He is smiling. Title: Wade Blank: A smooth ride Occupation and activities: Wade Blank is the founder of Atlantis Community. a group that helps severely disabled people live on their own, outside of nursing homes. He is a Presbyterian minister who helped draft resisters flee to Canada in the 1960s and organized the disabled to fight for their rights in the '70s and '80s. During one demonstration he and several people with disabilities took sledge hammers to a city curb, to show the problems people in wheelchairs have getting around on city sidewalks. "My goal is for the community to understand," he says. "And understand that will be a long process.“ Age: 45. Birthplace: Pittsburgh. Marital status: Married, with a one and a half year-old son and a 15-year-old daughter. Worse job: “I worked for Sparkle Wash Truck and Mobile Home Wash. l went out and washed semi-trucks and mobile homes -- a wash and a wax ior $20." Car: 1977 Dodge wheelchair van; 1972 Volkswagen bug. Favorite vacation spot: Moab, Utah. Favorite music group: Talking Heads. Favorite movie: Apocalypse Now. The worst part of my job: “Trying to get the state to reimburse me for the services we've provided." I first became interested in the problems of the disabled: "When I started as an orderly in a nursing home in 1971. I was going to work every day and asking myself, if I was disabled, is this the way I'd want to live the rest of my life? One of the things that shook me to the core: There was one woman, she was 20 years old with polio and she was going back to high school we (had) filed an action to force the school systems to accept the disabled in school she couldn't deal with her classmates knowing she lived in a nursing home. She committed suicide. That's when I decided to bail out of the nursing home model. What can you do to make a nursing home more acceptable? You just can't." Most painful experience: “When that woman committed suicide. She hung on about 10 days. I remember going to St. Anthony's, watching her on the breathing machine and hoping she'd make it. It was almost my personal guilt; people said, ‘if you wouldn't have subjected her to the outside world, if the nurses had total control (at the nursing home), this kind of thing never would have happened.' When they told me she stopped breathing, I had to take a leave of absence." One thing I can’t stand: "Suits and ties." Nobody knows I’m: "Sentimental." Most irrational act: "When I first came to Denver. I hung around people against the (Vietnam) war. We were going to shut down 16th and California (with a sit in). I sat down. And when the police said, ‘Move,’ everybody moved except me. To this day. when I saw everybody getting up, I don't know why I didn't get up and move." My biggest regret: “That people come into your life and go out of your life and that we can't maintain constant friendship with everybody." Worst advice my parents gave me: "You can change the system from within." My most embarrassing moment: “I was preaching at this church. It was a hot July day and a congregation of very elderly people. l said, ‘For the closing hymn, will everyone remain seated.‘ We always sang Stand Up for Jesus at the closing hymn. So here's the congregation sitting there singing Stand Up For Jesus. I don't know lf anybody figured out the irony of the situation, but I sure did." If I could change one thing about myself: "I'd be less compulsive." A final word: "All the disabled want is to live like everyone else. That's all we represent: the right to ride public transportation, the right to go into any restaurant to eat, the right to have enough money to survive, like everyone else. My daughter is 15 years old and in a wheelchair. l have the same hopes for her that anybody else does. that she should be able to go to school and move around the country just like anybody else."
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Column title: PEOPLE WHO MAKE A DIFFERENCE Photo: A downward shot of Wade Blank standing with his hands clasped. He has his signature long hair and tinted glasses and is wearing an anorak. Someone is partially visible behind Wade. Caption reads: Wade Blank dedicated almost 20 years of his life to fighting for civil rights for people with disabilities. The members of ADAPT - the disability rights organization Blank founded - will continue the battle in his memory. Title: A True Activist Wade Blank was raised in Canton, OH, where he learned to be a Cleveland Browns football fan. a condition that caused him great pain throughout his life. He earned the equivalent of a doctoral degree in theology from McCormick Seminary in Chicago, where he was ordained a Presbyterian minister. After seven years as a minister, he decided to take a year off for “human service" and became an orderly in a nursing home. His experiences there with young adults with disabilities led him to establish the second independent living center in the nation in 1975—the Atlantis Community. Wade Blank dedicated almost 20 years of his life to fighting for civil rights for people with disabilities. The members of ADAPT—the disability rights organization Blank founded will continue the battle in his memory. Blanks first years in his efforts to win civil rights for people who have disabilities were spent eliminating attitudinal and architectural barriers in Denver. Beginning with l2 young adults with disabilities who were placed in a nursing home for lack of any other options, Blank led them on an exodus into their own homes in the community, where he successfully persuaded the legislature to fund needed personal care assistance outside an institution for the first time. Since then, the Atlantis Community has liberated more than 900 people with severe disabilities from institutions and other sheltered settings and provides the services and support they require to maintain themselves in the community. Once the people of Atlantis entered the "free world," they found that society was completely unprepared to include them. So Blank and his friends set off to integrate Denver. The public buses they needed were inaccessible to wheelchairs. Blank led training sessions and actions that escalated from addressing the transit board to civil disobedience, blocking the buses people with disabilities couldn't ride. This seven-year campaign resulted in a 100% accessible bus system that offers affordable, self determined transportation to over 30,000 riders with disabilities in the area, and it developed an assertive group of people who vowed to fight for and win full and equal rights in their society. As the reputation of Denver as the most accessible city in the nation spread, activists from every state began to call for advice and help. ln1983, Blank founded ADAPT (American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit) as a training project. The dramatic actions of ADAPT members have generated publicity that has raised awareness of disability rights throughout the nation, trained over 1,200 activists in the “fire” of civil disobedience, and provided the political muscle behind the Americans with Disabilities Act. When the right to access to public transit was won in 1990, ADAPT’s name was changed to American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today. The new focus is on winning a federal mandate and funding for personal assistance services for every person with a disability in the nation who needs such help to live independently. Blank and his son Lincoln drowned on February 15, 1993, off the Baja Coast. The people of ADAPT will continue the struggle for this essential victory in their memories until all Americans with disabilities have the opportunity to choose to live independent lives. —By Molly Blank
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Wade Blank, from the waist up, wearing a black ADAPT Free Our People T-shirt. He has long - below the shoulder length - straight blonde hair parted in the middle, and he is wearing round tinted glasses. Behind him you can see the red and white stripes of the ADAPT flag.
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The Handicapped Coloradan / Page 15 & 16 [This article continues in ADAPT 1786, but has been completely included here for easier reading.] Title: "If heaven isn't accessible God had better Watch out!" Photo: Waist up picture of Wade Blank with his below shoulder length blonde hair and round tinted glasses. He is smiling and wearing a vest. Caption reads: Wade Blank ADAPT founder dies in Mexico. Wade Blank went down to Baja, California, in February and drowned there trying to save his eight year old son Lincoln. He was there vacationing with his family. The money for the trip came from Wade’s share of a legal settlement in San Francisco when bad guys violated the civil rights of ADAPT demonstrators. He couldn't afford that kind of trip on his own. He never made more than $16,000 in his life. Lincoln was in the water swimming. An undertow got him and Wade went in after him. He had to know there was very little chance either one would survive. Some fisherman from a nearby village fished Wade’ s body from the water. His wife Molly brought his body home and they covered the coffin with an American flag. Only the stars on this flag formed a wheelchair. Lincoln’s body was never recovered. A few days before he left on that vacation, I told him to skip Baja and its treacherous waters for the calmer seas off Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. Wade said he’d think about it but we both knew he wouldn’t alter his plans. Wade Blank liked to be where the action was. Many of the 1100 people who filled the ballroom at the Radisson Hotel on Sunday, Feb. 21, to say goodbye to their fallen comrade had accompanied him into battle. “If heaven isn’t accessible,” one of them warned, “God better watch out!” Wade founded the Atlantis Community in 1975 when he helped several disabled people move out of a nursing home and into their own apartments. Then he went on to help organize protests against RTD for not having wheelchairs lifts on its buses, a move that later led to the creation of ADAPT, which then stood for American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (“The hard part is getting the acronym right,” he told me at the time.) I asked Tom Olin who was going to replace Wade. “No one,” he said. “Wade was into empowering disabled people. It’s a tribute to him that we’ll just keep on going.” Maybe. But it won’t be the same. People like Wade Blank don't come along very often. A writer for Westward once called Wade the nearest thing to a saint he had ever met. But Wade wasn’t perfect. After all, he was a Cleveland Browns’ fan. He had it so bad that on game day he’d call home to his folks in Ohio and have them put the phone next to the radio. He was president of the Cleveland Browns Fans in Exile Club. A small part of him died when Elway found Jackson in the end zone in the 1987 AFC Championship game. He was a devoted father who had a vasectomy reversed after he married Molly. He called me soon after the operation and bitched about having to lie still to prevent the tubes from severing again. It was the only time I knew him to stay still. The time spent was worth it. He loved Lincoln and Caitlan just as he loved Heather, his adopted daughter. He instilled in them special values. A neighbor recalled a time when she came home and observed Lincoln in front of his house directing some other kids. They weren't playing cowboy and Indian or war or any of the usual childhood games. They were playing rally. “All right,” Lincoln said. “United we stand, never apart.” Wade was a Presbyterian minister whose language would make a coal miner blush. I quoted him a lot on these pages over the past ten years or so but I never quoted him accurately. He used four letter words the way other people use punctuation. Someone made a TV movie about the events at Heritage Nursing Home and Wade said it was close to the truth. But the actor who played Wade didn’t quite capture his style. Wade wore his hair long and looked a little like a construction worker who took a wrong tum back in the 1960s. He once asked me if I wore ties. “I own one,” I said. “It keeps my sleeping bag rolled up.” He liked that. He hated ties. At the memorial service, those few men who showed up wearing ties were asked to remove them—out of respect. By then I owned a real tie. You can‘t go to a funeral in my small hometown without one. I left it at home for Wade. He didn’t have the eloquence of a Martin Luther King. He didn't need it. He wasn’t interested in grabbing the spotlight for himself. He taught his friends that their wheelchairs were a weapon and if they used them right, the whole world would take notice. RTD took notice. Denver became one of the first cities in the U.S. to adopt accessible public transit. Wade helped carry that message to countless other cities. He showed people how they could make a statement by going to jail and then he went out and raised the bail money. Eventually, in a parking lot in Atlanta, the feds gave in. Accessible public transit would be the law of the land. Wade wasn’t about to rest on his laurels. He turned his attention to an earlier cause. ADAPT changed the acronym to American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today and took on the nursing home industry. Wade knew that the disabled warriors who took on the federal government over accessible transit and got themselves arrested scores of times were strong enough to live in their own homes. He vowed to force the federal government to take money away from the nursing homes and make that dream a reality. That battle goes on. His friends at ADAPT are planning a memorial service in his honor in Washington, D.C. this May. At the same time, they’re going to make sure Bill Clinton honors his promises to provide funds for such attendant care. It's a fitting memorial but you can find plenty of monuments to Wade Blank in this country. There one at every street comer where there’s a curb cut and one on every bus equipped with a lift. And every time someone who is exploited because of a physical disability raises a fist in defiance and fights for his or her freedom and humanity, you’ll see Wade’s image in their eyes and his dream in their hearts. So long, Wade. If it’s really heaven, there won’t be a dress code. Written by Tom Schantz
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Denver Post, 1975 PHOTO. Denver Post photos by Ernie Leyba: A slim woman and man in a manual wheelchair are surrounded by laundry they are folding and stacking. They look over their shoulders as the man shakes hands with a man in a dark suit (Governor Lamm) who is talking with another standing man with longish blonde hair (Wade Blank). Caption reads: Gov. Dick Lamm, left,and Director Wade Blank visit laundry. Handicapped "hot line" has been set up in laundry, which is also office. [Headline] Lamm Tours Community of Handicaps By Patrick A. McGuire Denver Post Staff Writer Fourteen handicapped persons who once lived in nursing homes, but now enjoy a high degree of independence in their own community, welcomed Gov. Dick Lamm to their homes Tuesday for a special tour. Their home, the Atlantis Community, occupies seven apartments and a laundry room in a Denver Housing project at W. 11th and Federal Boulevard. With federal and state funds, the 14 residents and 12 staff aides have remodeled the apartments so that wheel chairs move freely through hallways and down ramps. With a state grant they have set up a handicapped “hot line” in the laundry room that doubles as an office. As many as 70 times daily, handicapped persons across the city and state call seeking information on services. Lamm encouraged Atlantis to seek state funds for the project through the Colorado Social Services Department. He went to the community Tuesday, ostensibly to see how state money was being used, but admitted in an interview that he had other reasons. “During my campaign," he said, “that whole walk across the state was very intense. It was a gimmick, too, I’ll be the first to admit that. “But I stayed at some places and saw some people like these. I was trying to sensitize myself. You know, it’s the easiest thing in the world to forget people like these.” He said he wanted to make sure he didn’t forget them. Lamm went from apartment to apartment with Wade Blank, Atlantis executive director, inspecting the homes and shaking hands with the delighted residents. For most of their lives, the residents have lived in nursing homes, depending on them for medical care and a social life. Barry Rosenberg, a member of the Atlantis board of directors, told Lamm, “So many handicapped are born with a sense of guilt, because they’re different. We’re trying to turn them around and give them some hope. Atlantis residents Blank said, draw on existing city services for medical care and social services.He estimated that it costs $225 a month less, per person, to live at Atlantis than in a nursing home. The city is planning to lower the curbing along the Atlantis boundary on Federal Boulevard, so the wheel-chaired residents easily can cross the street to stores and restaurants. Lamm praised the Atlantis staff as “dedicated people who are trying to make sure a few other fine human beings are cared for."