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Staartsäit / Albumen / Schlagwierder Wade Blank
+ nursing homes + Glenn Kopp 2
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 (37)
The Denver Post August 29, 1976 PHOTO: A woman (Carolyn Finell) sits in her wheelchair turned sideways, relaxed, facing the camera. Her arm is slung over the backrest, and she is beaming. New Key Fulfills Residents' Dreams (continued from page 36) and the other four Atlantis residents to go out on their own without state support for a proposal advanced by Atlantis. That proposal was presented in June to Henry A. Foley, director of the Colorado Social Services Department. Foley's response was enthusiastic according to Wade Blank and Glen Kopp, co-directors at Atlantis. And as a result, Foley set up a pilot project which will go until the end of 1977. Simply stated, the project involves Atlantis'creation of an expanded staff of attendants to provide necessary services to the disabled in their apartments and homes as well as at Atlantis. And the state medicaid fund will pick up the difference between government cost for attendant services and the amount of funds that actually are expended to provide the disabled with necessary care as certified by a physician. Blank explained that the government pays an average of $575 monthly for a severely disabled young adult living in a nursing home. If the disabled person moves into his own apartment he receives $186?[text is blury] monthly from various governmental sources to pay for his rent, food, telephone and personal needs. And a county social services department may provide an additional $40 to $217 monthly to the disabled person for attendant services. But quite often, Blank said, even the maximum of $217 monthly doesn't cover the attendant services needed. And qualified attendants may not always be available, he noted. The cooperative program between Atlantis and the state might remedy those shortcomings and might cut government expenditures for the disabled substantially, Blank said. If the program is successful, Blank said, it could be expanded statewide for the disabled. Eventually, he added, the program might be extended to the state's elderly persons to keep them in their own homes and apartments, rather than placing them in a facility outside the home. Equally elated over the program is Mary Joyce, who is Jeannie's mother. Mrs. Joyce and her husband, Joseph, came to Denver last week from their home in Scarborough, Maine and were with Jeannie when she first viewed her apartment. “It's a pretty wonderful step" Mrs. Joyce said as she watched her daughter move in her wheelchair through the apartment. "We can't believe the strides she'd made in the last two years with her determination to live on her own and take care of herself." To two other Atlantis residents, George Roberts and Don Clubb, the move to their own apartment is "a pretty big change." Born with cerebral palsy, George, now 28, was left as an infant at the door of an adoption agency in southern Colorado. George then was placed in a state home and training school where he remained for 21 years - a period he describes as "all my life." He also spent more than four years in a nursing home before being accepted at Atlantis in June 1975. Don, who soon will be 20, lost both legs as the result of a slide down a mountainside when he was six years old. For about 10 years, Don was in state home and training schools. And for the past five years, he has been in a nursing home. He, too, is confined to a wheelchair. Last week, as George and Don viewed the apartment they will share in north Denver, they seemed to invest the nearly empty rooms with an almost magical air. "It's wonderful," George said over and over. Carefully, he moved his wheelchair up to the electric stove and inspected the oven. In the bedroom, he was jubilent as he examined the heating and air-conditioning controls. And almost reverently, he opened and closed the sliding doors of a large bedroom closed. Don spoke quietly but with no less enthusiasm. "It's a very nice place - the first place of my own," he said. He smiled in the direction of the outdoor pool and said he swam very well and would teach George. Also preparing to move into an apartment they will share in south Denver are two other Atlantis residents, Carolyn Finnell, 33 and Nancy Anderson, 31. When she was 21, Nancy underwent surgery for removal of a brain tumor. For the next nine years, Nancy just sat in Denver area nursing homes unable to talk or walk, her body partially paralyzed. At that time, doctors said Nancy would be confined to nursing homes for the rest of her life and would never walk again. But since moving to Atlantis last summer, Nancy has been striving diligently in therapy sessions at Denver General Hospital. Working through the pain and the fatigue, she has learned to walk for up to 300 yards with the aid of a walker. And she has expanded her vocabulary to almost 10 words and is using a word machine in the new process of learning others. For Carolyn Finnell, who was born with cerebral palsy, there has been no easy or direct road to independent living. After finishing the ninth grade, Carolyn wasn't particularly encouraged to continue. But she was convinced and convinced others, that she was capable of further education. She obtained her GED, or general equivalency diploma, which is equivalent to a high school diploma. And she earned a degree in journalism at Metropolitan State College. But then there were the leaden days - four years in nursing homes "which didn't work out." Afterward, Carolyn came to Atlantis and her hope was reborn. Now, Carolyn is working in the Atlantis planning office and preparing plans for the education of the disabled. In her quarters at Atlantis last week, Carolyn said it was painful to leave so many behind when she left the nursing home. "But as we move out of Atlantis, it will make it possible for others to move in - and they never thought that was possible," she added. Looking to the future, Carolyn said she would like to return to school to obtain training so that she can tutor disabled persons who have never had an education. "There's a whole generation of disabled people who have been denied an education," she said. Carolyn stressed that she wasn't going to "wage a war against nursing homes I'm willing to live and let live." But she obviously was emotionally affected as she said, "I never realized until I got out of a nursing home that for a young person, it's a living death: You really have nothing to live for...nothing to do but just sit. Many disabled persons, Carolyn noted, attend Opportunity School and Boettcher School in Denver. "But I know for myself," she said, "I didn't have any faith in my ability to work." "But I've been involved in Atlantis planning," she said as a smile swept across her face and she threw out her arms, embracing the air. "I've gained faith in my ability and I'm started to get ambitious." Her next words came slowly, with triumphal emphasis: "I....just....feel....alive!"