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Tuis / Albums / Sleutelwoorde Mike Auberger
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ADAPT (745)
Fourth Wave Magazine (Washington University) [This article continues in ADAPT 729, 721 and 739, but it is included here in it's entirety for easier reading.] Wheelchair Warriors Story and Photographs by Jan Neely Editor's note: Last May, Fourth Wave editorial intern Jan Neely and I flew to Chicago for our first ADAPT demonstration. ADAPT (or American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today, as it is more formally known), first took to the streets 12 years ago in Denver, Colorado, to fight for wheelchairaccessible public transportation. Today, with the passage of the ADA securing transportation access, ADAPT has taken on the nursing home industry, institutions and the United States government in an attempt to provide community based personal attendant care and housing to all persons with disabilities in all 50 states. Here’s what happened: ..... Editor Photo: A city sidewalk jamed with wheelchairs and a couple of cameramen standing beside them between parked cars. Larry Biondi is on front right side of the photo. People are basically lined up waiting to move out. Article begins: DAY ONE: ADAPT arrives in Chicago. Its my first demonstration and my first job as a photojournalist. "Click, click" goes my camera. Everybody else may look cool. but I'm shakin' in my shoes. Try to picture 300 people (most in wheelchairs) on the same mission. No pro-nursing home advocate is safe here! I feel as if I've just entered THE ADAPT ZONE! Actually, the first day was mellow and taken up with pre-action planning. ADAPT doesn't have any membership rules or requirements. You just have to believe that people with disabilities have the right to live without putting up with abuse of any kind. I'm real excited because this is the first group I've ever been involved with that has people with all kinds of disabilities, not just developmental disabilities. DAY 2 Here's ADAPT (photo 1) blocking the doors of the auditorium in hope of catching Dr. Sullivan when he leaves. The Chicago police and the Secret Service put up barricades and pushed back the activists. Victoria Medgyesi, editor of Fourth Wave and my traveling buddy, used her press pass to get into where Dr. Sullivan was to ask him some questions. He refused to talk to her about Medicaid, ADAPT or nursing home abuse. PHOTO 1: A line of Chicago police officers face off against a line of ADAPT protesters in wheelchairs who come up to about the middle of the officer's chests. In the forground there is a barricade, but further back they are just right up against each other. PHOTO 2: Three men in wheelchairs (__________, ___________ and JT Templeton sit in an open area in front of a barricade. Behind the barricade is a crowd of people. JT holds a poster that reads "Sullivan where are you?" Article continues... DAY 2 cont. Usually ADAPT doesn’t go around the country crashing graduations, but this one was different (photo 2) Here we are at the University of Chicago where Dr. Louis Sullivan, Secretary of Human and Health Services, is speaking to students who are going to be medical professionals. For the past two years, ADAPT has been trying to talk to Dr. Sullivan about redirecting 25 percent of the Medicaid budget for personal attendant care into a home-based program. But he has refused to talk to ADAPT or to change the rules. As the graduation crowd went in, ADAPT passed out flyers. As l told one person, “What if you become disabled someday? What if your family couldn't take care of you?" As for the police, at this time they just stood back and watched. One of the reasons ADAPT has public demonstrations is to make the public aware of what's important to people with disabilities. Actions like this keep us going to meetings back home even though what we say is usually ignored. DAY 3 The next day we went to one of ADAPT's all time favorite places to "act up": the state office of Health and Human Services. It was only a few blocks away from our downtown hotel. so all 300 of us got in a single line and went for a little walk. Did I say little? Wait a minute. a line of 300 people in wheelchairs plus their supporters? Little? I will admit it was the most incredible thing I have ever seen. ADAPT does not stop when it goes on one of its “little walks." It does not stop for lights, trucks, cars, cops, or anything else. It also goes right down the middle of the street. But that's not to say ADAPT isn't nice, oh no! All along the way ADAPT gave the people of Chicago (who lined up on the curbs to watch as we wheeled and walked by) little gifts of knowledge: flyers with the real scoop on nursing homes. PHOTO 3: Amid a long line of ADAPT folks marching in their wheelchairs, a man (Mark Johnson) in a wheelchair talks with a man (Bill Henning) and a woman who are walking beside him. PHOTO 4: A city street lined by tall buildings, is filled by ADAPT protesters apparently crowded from one side to the other. Several people standing closest to the camera but facing away (Jimmi Schrode is on the far left) raise their hands, thumbs up. Article continues... DAY 3 cont. It was a thrill to watch ADAPT in action. When the whole group got to the Federal building, it was a big mess. We blocked off streets and almost shut the building down. As ADAPT told the police, the media and all the people who gathered; “We declare this building a Federal nursing home... only this time, no one goes in or out without our permission! " The reason many activists do this is because they once lived in nursing homes and other institutions and know how bad those places are. Boy, can I relate. I have mild cerebral palsy and I’m lucky to have always lived at home. But will I always be lucky? I feel that as long as there are institutions, they will be a threat to the kind of life my friends and I want to live. This laid-back looking guy is Mike Auberger. He is one of the original ADAPT activists. ADAPT may look like a bunch of disorganized hippies who lost the map to Woodstock 20 years ago, but the opposite is true. In Mike's backpack is one of ADAPT's three cellular phones and the base walkie-talkie! Bill Scarborough, an activist from Texas, keeps the computer nerds in the know by sending the word out from his laptop computer to computer bulletin boards across the country. ADAPT also has a media person who goes to whatever city ADAPT is demonstrating in several days ahead to let people know whats going to happen. PHOTO 5: A very intense looking man (Mike Auberger) in a power chair is sitting sideways to the camera. Behind him is some kind of vehicle and the ADAPT crowd filling the street. Tisha Auberger (Cunningham) is squatting on the bottom right of the picture. After nine long hours of blocking the building's doors, representatives from HHS finally agreed to meet in the street with ADAPT. It turned into a regular media pow-wow. Activists told the administrators and the media what was needed by people with disabilities. Photo 6: A gaggle of reporters and photographers tightly encircle the Regional HHS Director and several ADAPT protesters (Teresa Monroe, center, and Bob Kafka, right side). Article continues... We talked and they listened, but I have a feeling the concern I saw on those experts' faces was just the same old B.S. All of ADAPT's demonstrations are non-violent, but they are important battles in a war fought by people who are fighting to lead decent lives. The possibility of being arrested did make me nervous. It made me feel a little better when ADAPT told the new people that, if you got arrested, the group would never leave you alone. They said ADAPT would tell the cops your needs, get you a good lawyer, and stay on the outside of the jail chanting so you would know ADAPT was with you. Photo 7: Portrait shot of a man (Gene Rogers) with long brown hair and glasses, sitting in his wheelchair. He is wearing a T-shirt with a larger than life sized photo of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr's face and the words "VIOLENCE IS IMMORAL" and a lengthy quote below that is too small to read in the photo. Article continues... DAY 4 As l was getting dressed I thought to myself “Today ADAPT is taking on the AMA." Oh God. what have l gotten myself into? l mean the AMA! The Big Brother of the medical world; the people who are not only in charge of admissions to nursing homes, but who are also in charge of giving prescriptions to people like me. I thought: What if my doctor saw me and did not like what I was doing with ADAPT? Would he stop giving me my blood pressure pills that I can't afford to buy? What would happen then? What about the others? Aren't they in the same boat? I got a lot more out of my trip to Chicago than just a story and a few good pictures. I met some people who are important to the disability rights movement. I felt accepted and I came home with the feeling that together we can really change things. People with disabilities need to keep talking. We need to demonstrate. We need to tell the so-called "experts" the real truth and try not to be too afraid while were doing it. Insert text box: Incitement, Stephanie Thomas Editor. What's happening on the front lines? Read INCITEMENT, the official newsmagazine of ADAPT, and learn the who, what, when, where and why behind today's headline news. Free! To order contact: ADAPT/INCITEMENT 1339 Lamar SQ DR Suite B, Austin, TX 78704 (512)442-0252 Second text insert at end of article: Jan Neely is a photography student at Olympic Community College and an editorial intern at Fourth Wave. She is active in People First of Washington. the end
ADAPT (744)
The Disability Rag July/August, 1992 [This article continues on ADAPT 738, 733,728, 724, 748, 743 and finally 737; however the entire text is included here for easier reading. ] Photo by Tom Olin: A policeman holds a wooden barricade while another tries to pull a protester who is lying on the ground by his pants legs backward and out from under the barricade. The protester is holding onto something above his head. On one side a third policeman seems to be coming over and on the other side a man (Frank Lozano) and his guide dog (Frazier) are coming over. Title: On the barricades With ADAPT by Mary Johnson photos by Tom Olin “I am tired of rules and regulations. And them telling me what you have to do. None of them has worked for me as good as being at home. In nursing homes, they put you on sleeping pills to keep you from getting aggravated with what will occur. “You can’t pay —— you don’t have any money to pay an attendant at night, when you’re on SSI. All of these things they’re constantly cutting. I haven’t been in a nursing home for 15 years — and I don’t plan to go.” It's Saturday night in Chicago. Nearly 300 ADAPT members have gathered in a meeting room in Chicago’s Bismarck hotel, getting ready for the group’s May 1992 assault on the Windy City. People are telling their stories. Many are there because there was a nursing home in their past — or they don’t want one in their future. The next day the group will swoop down on the University of Chicago's commencement exercises. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan is speaking, and some in the group can't believe their late-breaking good fortune at getting another shot at hassling the Secretary who has steadfastly refused to meet with them to discuss redirecting Medicaid funds to in-home attendant services. A planned Mother's Day March to a graveyard — to symbolize how this nation kills its mothers in nursing homes — is cancelled. “I was never for that dead stuff anyway," ADAPT organizer Mike Auberger says. The week's events are debated. Somebody wants to know why they see police taking photos of them whenever there's an ADAPT action. There's an attorney available for people who get arrested, the group is told; they‘re given his name, as well as ADAPT organizers to contact if they get arrested. “I’m telling you — and it’s the most important thing I'm gonna say." Auberger warns the group. “have your medications with you if you're going to get arrested. Have ‘em labelled. No pill boxes; bottles. Make sure it has your name on it — nobody else's. Make sure there’s no illegal substances on you; no weapons. ‘Cos this is going to follow us down the road.” As it turned out, Chicago was mild compared to Orlando's confrontations last fall, in which nearly all ADAPT activists were thrown in jail — some in solitary confinement — for the week. In Chicago, only 10 people would be cited and fined in Monday’s confrontation at the HHS regional offices in downtown Chicago, and only 4 police-tagged “leaders” arrested the next day at American Medical Association headquarters; all were released at day’s end. Perhaps the national outrage in the wake of the Rodney King beating acquittal in Los Angeles a few weeks before had made Chicago police, considered to be some of the most brutal, cautious. The University of Chicago graduation turns out to be a beautiful Chicago spring day. Police and Secret Service are allowing ADAPT members into the auditorium without any hassle. Later, though, Jim Parker is asked to leave. He protests loudly as police haul him out a side door: “Why am l the only one being asked to leave?” About that time Tim Carver of Tennessee simply rolls off into the men's room, unnoticed, to wait out the sweep. Several ADAPT members unfurl a large FREE OUR PEOPLE banner over the wall below their seats, off in the “handicapped section" where the Secret Service have relegated them. Big burly Secret Service men with their walkie-talkies run over quickly and reach down to pull it up. Bob Kafka and Allen Haines are as determined that they won’t succeed. A kind of arm wrestling match ensues with Kafka and Haines holding firmly to the banner to keep it hanging over the wall where it forms a backdrop to the stage area where Sullivan will be speaking. The Secret Service have the advantage of leverage; they’re taller. One especially burly guy finally wrests the pole with its banner away from them and with a contemptuous jerk, flings it high into the bleachers behind them. “Clear ‘em out," mutters an all-business police captain. Four cops to a chair seems to be the agreed-on method of removal. Paulette Patterson of Chicago is removed this way. Over on the side, Anita Cameron and Jim Parker, back in and out of his wheelchair, and Frank Lozano, minus dog Frazier, are scooting down the steps on a side tier, trying to make it down to where Sullivan will speak, but they're caught and removed, too. “Get as close to the doors as possible,” says Bob Kafka to the other activists who have now been ejected from the back of the building. With police blocking doors. clots of ADAPT move to every entrance. Well, almost every one. Jean Stewart and Eleanor Smith use Stewart's crutches to pound on the metal doors, trying to create a disturbance inside, as the graduation ceremonies begin. Inside, though, the noise is barely audible. Nancy Moulton of Atlanta is sitting quietly on the ground, leaning on a door, with her guide dog Nan beside her. “Get up,” say a blue shirted Chicago cop. Moulton doesn‘t move. Nan rests her head on Moulton’s leg and rolls her eyes up at the cop towering over them. Now there are 4 Chicago cops and one guy who must be from the Secret Service hanging over Moulton and her dog. “If you don't move, we’ll have to grab you. and the dog will attack,” the cop persists. Still Moulton sits. “If you’re concerned about the dog, move!” the cop barks. Moulton gets up, worried that the cops will hurt Nan. While some block doors, others pass out leaflets to latecomers. The chants of “hey hey, ho. ho, nursing homes have got to go!" change to “We want Sullivan!" The police have barricaded the exit with blue sawhorses that read “police line." A pickup truck from the University's facilities management is unloading yellow university police barricades. A lady inside the back of the auditorium, hearing the faint chanting coming from outside, mutters, “they're not making friends." She‘s with the university. The University of Chicago is so large that commencement is held in two shifts; a morning one and an afternoon one. Sullivan has finished speaking and the crowd is emerging from the pavilion. They walk down the long fence of police barricades, while ADAPT chants and hands them leaflets: “Wanted: Sullivan. For crimes against disabled people." Inset picture: Beefy policeman with his cap down over his nose leaning forward. Caption: “If you care about your dog, move!” Article continues: It's lunch. ADAPT always feeds its activists. Today it‘s Burger King. Attendants and other walkies pass out cokes and burgers. Nan, Moulton’s dog, gets some much welcomed ice cubes from the big bag under the tree, put into the little folding plastic water bowl Moulton carries with her. A new crowd is coming to the arena. They, too, get leaflets and chants. Tim Craven has been ejected when police found him inside, but not before he and the other two who had hidden themselves in the press box get off a few good chants in Sullivan’s direction. A reporter for Habilitation, a disability magazine out of Seattle, has marched up to Sullivan, she reports, and asked him the questions ADAPT has so long wanted to ask him. To every single question, she says, he has responded, “It's a very nice day." Most of the students don‘t want to talk to a reporter. They have no comment. Some think that it‘s wrong of ADAPT to spoil their special day. Others think the group has a right to make itself heard — just not here, not now. One woman who has read the flyers says that "they don‘t want to be prisoners in nursing homes." A man, who hasn‘t read one, says he doesn’t know what they're protesting about but he thinks they have a right to do it. His daughter is graduating today —— with a degree in special education. Each ADAPT contingent blocking an entrance has its contingent of cops. The two `groups` joke with each other and pass the time in small talk. It's a lot like a chess game, says Haines; this trying to puzzle out where Sullivan‘s going to exit. Just about the time it occurs to several of the organizers who have been trying to psych out from which exit Sullivan will be spirited away that the one exit that has no guards on it is the parking lot entrance, a police car comes screaming down the street, makes an abrupt U-turn, and, at that moment, Sullivan's car, driven by Secret Service, shoots out of the entrance. Several ADAPT wheelers are on his tail in a flash, but it's too late. Sullivan again escapes— but the point, say the activists, has been well made to the over 10,000 people who have attended. Thousands of flyers have been passed out. PHOTO by Tom Olin: Inside a cavernous arena filled with people, two plain clothes police or Secret Service men have an ADAPT person (Bob Kafka) by the arms and are trying to lift him. He is sitting on the steps of an aisle leaning forward. To their right a young man in a button up shirt and jeans, a graduate, looks down at them. Caption reads: Getting to see Sullivan. Not. ADAPT makes no effort to block the streets surrounding the Pavilion. Monday‘s a different story. By 11am, both State and Adams Streets are blocked. Downtown Chicago is taking the flyers as fast as they’re being passed out. Many of them are surprisingly in agreement with ADAPT’s call for 25% of the current Medicaid money to be redirected to in-home services. One businessman engages Bob Kafka in a long and intense discussion over the merits of attendant services. He has buddies who were in Viemam, he says, and want the same thing Kafka does. He gives Kafka his card. Many other people are giving ADAPT members their cards, too; they are interested in the issue. Nobody, they say, has brought it up before. Certainly not the Chicago Tribune, which, instead of covering the baccalaureate brouhaha, runs a feature story on a college camp-out. “What I‘m looking for is a reasonable atmosphere to address the issues." Delilah Brummet Flaum, HHS’s Region V Director, would have to shout to make herself heard over downtown Chicago traffic and hundreds of milling demonstrators. And she‘s not shouting. She has come down, along with Chester Stroyny. Regional Director of the HealthCare Financing Administration and HCFA official David DuPre. in response to ADAPT demands. They want to meet with “officials”; they’ve blockaded the Region V HHS headquarters and aren‘t letting anyone in or out — unless they're willing to climb and crawl over protesters. About 20 activists have gotten all the way up to the HHS offices on the 15th floor, and have a bunch of police in there with them. It’s lunchtime by the time Flaum, Stroyny and DuPre are trotted out to Karen Tamley, Bob Kafka and Teresa Monroe and the others in the middle of Adams Street. ADAPT wants them to call Sullivan, to make him come back to Chicago and meet with them. Flaum can’t do that. “I am willing to do anything else you want us to do. to do try to get this resolved,” she’s saying. But she wants the group to be "more reasonable." She tells Tamley that she is “well aware" of ADAPT’s concerns, and that “the Bush Administration is working on non-institutional care options." Anna Stonum asks more questions. People in the crowd are starting to yell that they can’t hear. Flaum is telling Kafka that “shutting down a building“ is not the way to get a meeting with Sullivan. Kafka responds that they‘ve sent at least four letters to Sullivan and he's never responded to a single one. “You know as well as I do that the Secretary sets the tone for the discussion,“ Kafka lectures her. Kafka and DuPre engage in a debate about facts and figures. They can't trip Kafka up; he seems to know as much if not more about the issue than these folks do. At times the officials even seem to agree with him. Not, however, when he charges that “nothing the Secretary has said or done" changes anything “because he's in the pocket of the nursing home industry." “We disagree with that," say all three officials simultaneously. “We do favor the de-institutionalization model." “The damn Secretary has not said one thing — ever - has not even said the word ‘attendant services’ publicly," Kafka yells, and swears that ADAPT will continue to hold the building. “This is not being positive," says Flaum. “These are peoples' lives you’re talking about.” Kafka retorts. Photo Inset: The head of Bob Kafka, looking very intense, below the words "The damn Secretary has never even said the word 'attendant services' publicly." Article continues: “You don’t know what it’s like,” Monroe shouts at the officials when Kafka's done. “I want to talk to Sullivan. You get him here. He has no idea. Don't tell me Sullivan knows.” Monroe’s point, which she makes to Flaum, is that the money should go directly to the disabled person “because no person knows better what they need than the disabled person. Let us have our dignity.” She argues with Stroyny over nursing home inspections. Mark Johnson accuses Sullivan of “being in the pocket of the nursing homes.“ And meetings like this, he charges, aren’t worth a thing “unless there’s a commitment." The group, hearing Johnson, takes the cue: “We want a commitment!" One of the workers in the HHS office has come out for lunch and now finds she cannot get back in over the demonstrators. Still, she thinks what they're doing is “positive.” She’s a volunteer in a nursing home herself, she says, “And I know they’re the pits. People who don't frequent them don't know. These people who are walking around here” — she gestures to lunch-hour Chicagoans moving up and down the street-- “they could become victims of nursing homes, too. I look at these people here" —— and now she means ADAPT — “and I know I wouldn’t want to be jailed up in a nursing home." But then, she believes in protesting, she says. “I think protests are fine. I'm in tune with them. I was with Martin Luther King back in the 60s." she says. “I was in jail with Dr. King. I was 14 years old. That was just what you did; you went to jail. Some of our young people don't understand. “This is how to explain it,” she continues, warming to her subject. “These people want to get heard. We couldn’t get heard in Birmingham, either. That‘s why we marched on Washington." She won’t identify herself, though, but will only say she’s a spectator. But she works upstairs in the HHS office, she says. “And they got time to listen to that TV stuff — people come in talking about that, they make a big deal about the stuff they see on TV. And they got these people out here and they don‘t want to pay attention. When I was upstairs, they were callin’ ‘em ‘beasts’ and “vultures.” It is a measure of the erosion of belief in the system that has become the trademark of ADAPT that, when an EMS ambulance pulls up to the door and the word goes out that police are bringing down a man who’s had a heart attack, the thought passes among the group that this is yet another ploy. They think the stretcher rolled into the lobby and up on the elevator may be a ruse to make them move away from the door, which they nonetheless do, not wanting it to be said that they cared not for another disabled person who might be in danger. And when the man is brought down on the stretcher, there is more speculation: wasn’t he one of the officials out here earlier? Did the confrontation and excitement give him a heart attack? Is he faking? Is it really a medical emergency, or just :1 move to get someone out of the building who has an important meeting to attend and doesn't want it stopped by cripples? No one remembers the man in the stretcher more than a few minutes after the ambulance pulls away, lights rotating, into the Chicago traffic. Jane Garza from El Hogar del Nino is with the protesters. blocking a door by leaning against it. She’s part of the protest. she says: disabled herself, though she knows she doesn’t look it. She works in early childhood education. Some of the signs protesters are carrying were made by the children at her center, she says. “It's a way to bring them into it," she points out. The parents of the disabled kids at the center “are all reasonable people,” she says. “So they understand my being at an activity like this." If she gets arrested, she says, she has an understanding with her agency: they will bail her out. She’s been arrested with ADAPT before. she says; that was in Montreal. She’s been with ADAPT protests in Washington — the one to get the ADA passed; and one in St. Louis. “No one wants to see their child in a nursing home. People can really relate to that." She says the group at her door has been talking to passersby all day about the issue. “I was on the verge of going into a nursing home myself, back in ’82.” says this woman who doesn’t look disabled. When she had her aneurism and was in rehabilitation, she says, the Illinois Department of Rehabilitation Services gave her money with which she was able to pay two people — one for the morning, and one for the evening. “I just needed help getting up and then getting to bed. I was so weak. I just needed minimal assistance, somebody there to help me get dressed. But without that program. they would have put me in a nursing home.” Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar’s budget cuts have forced the Department of Rehabilitation Services to extend a freeze on intakes in that program through the end of 1993. and Edgar, Chicago ADAPT charges, is trying to eliminate a yearly cost-of-living adjustment for attendants. "After I got stronger, I was able to manage on my own. But look at how many people are in my shoes!” she says. “I worked; I had money. I was a social worker back then: one who had to apply for public aid just so I could get assistance." Insert picture: A person (possibly Lonnie Smith) with his head to one side and below the words “We want them to see what it’s like for us.” Article continues... The philosophy and tactic of doorblocking: Let people go in and out, if they’re willing to climb over you and your chair to do it. Arrest is not the objective here; inconveniencing people is. “We want them to see what it's like for us.” says one who has engaged in many door blockings. Photo by Tom Olin: A policeman stands in the middle of the street legs braced in a wide stance and arms streched out. He is holding a man with a cane (Gary Bosworth) with one hand and with the other hand and foot trying to hold back a man (Bob Kafka) in a manual wheelchair who is bent forward pushing. Other police officers are standing in the street, a supervisor is watching, as is a TV cameraman. Other protesters are partially visible at the edges of the scene. Chicago police have a black and white checkered band around their hats that is very distinctive. Article continues- Tuesday morning's Chicago Tribune, instead of covering ADAPT's HHS confrontation. reports on stepped-up security measures at the downtown State of Illinois building where. the Tribune reports, in error, ADAPT was "supposed" to be demonstrating Monday. ADAPT, it says, changed its mind. In fact, ADAPT planned to hit state offices on Wednesday. Speculation abounds as to who fed the paper the false information, the effect of which is to make ADAPT look disorganized. It later becomes apparent that state officials have had a hand in it. There is nothing in the Tribune about the people who stopped along State Street and asked questions, about Flaum, about any of it. The Sun-Times carries a photo inside. At the comer of State and Grant, a baby-blue police wrecker, the same blue as the cars, as the barricades, has blocked a curb ramp. ADAPT has blocked four intersections adjacent to the American Medical Association. Wheelchairs are stretched across 16 streets. At the intersection of Wabash and Grand, in the back, Paulette Patterson is hassling the policemen, mouthing off and chasing them with her motorized chair. It seems she is trying to get arrested. The police are being friendly enough. It won't be until noon that things will get rough. The cops will barricade the main entrances to the glass-walled fortress: many ADAPT members will take that as their cue to launch themselves out of their wheelchairs onto the high-curbed stoop around the building, crawling up to bang and hammer on the wooden barricades. A few find satisfaction in pounding on the glass walls. This will happen, though, only after the confrontation — the confrontation that resulted in Jerry Eubanks of Chicago being dropped from his wheelchair: picked up by his neck, it seems to other protesters, who holler for an “Ambulance! Now!”; the confrontation that causes Patterson to roll from her wheelchair and shriek at the top of her lungs, kicking her legs wildly as police try to pick her up. The police back off; when they come at her again, her screams again drive them back. Finally, Patterson is left alone, and, once more in her wheelchair, rolls off to the side, where she admits slyly and with her trademark smile that she enjoys discomfiting police. “They don't wanna mess with me," she says proudly. Suddenly they are all there again, surging at the entrance, trying to get up the high curb. Stephanie Thomas and Diane Coleman and others are wedging themselves in next to the Chicago Transit Authority paratransit vehicles that are a sure sign of arrests: it's the only way police can haul off a wheelchair to the hoosegow. Allen Leegant is diving under a barricade trying to get up to the entrance. Chris Hronis and Arthur Campbell are trying to follow; they are caught by police. Campbell is carried, spread-eagle, by four cops, directly to a CT A van. Cameras are everywhere; TV crews have materialized out of nowhere. Campbell has been arrested. Mike Auberger has been arrested. Campbell and Auberger are each put into his own van. The police have their eye on Mike Ervin. When you catch a snatch of cop-to-cop talk, you learn they're trying to pick off those they figure to be the leaders. “What the cops never understand is why the demonstration continues after they’ve hauled off the folks they think are leaders," says someone who is blocking a street. “They can’t figure out that arresting leaders doesn’t work; that as soon as they arrest someone, somebody else just moves in." Susan Nussbaum, blocking a side door, answers questions about whether the movement will ever see violence. “There’s always the potential for violence," she is saying. “But it would be good if that could be understood in the context of a larger issue. “I am not in favor of getting my head beaten in." At 3:15 the building starts to empty out. ADAPT has managed to block all the exits, so AMA workers and officials alike are subjected to a gauntlet of taunts as they trot, under tight police protection, down the ramp to the alley and across to the parking garage. The taunts seem mostly to be of the “AMA Shame On You” variety. When ADAPT members arrived at AMA headquarters in the morning, they found tables set up with water coolers and cups of refreshing water awaiting them. Later, the AMA‘s Department of Geriatric Health would confirm for a reporter that the AMA had done this so the disabled people wouldn't get overheated and get sick. Many protesters were wary of the water. Some suspected it had been spiked with Valium: others thought it a ploy to get them to have to pee later on, adding to their discomfort and hopefully ending the demonstration early. Much of the water was left untouched. Water was also running through hoses into the sprinkling system of the AMA‘s lawns. This had the added effect of keeping protesters off the grassy knolls fronting the building. Shortly after ADAPT arrived, one demonstrator had parked his chair on the hose while others moved across the area to block doors. Later, the water was simply turned off. Insert picture: A head and shoulders picture of a protester chanting, with the words "AMA: Shame on you!" "People are dying shame on you!" Article continues- The AMA’s flak, Arnold Collins, was standing around with the TV and radio reporters most of the day. The AMA had issued a statement insisting it “supports the home care objectives of ADAPT." Dr. Joanne Schwartzberg, Director of the AMA's Department of Geriatric Health, said in the news release that a meeting the previous Thursday with ADAPT had been “productive” and that the two `groups` had “considerable common ground.” Campbell, who attended the meeting, had a different analysis. He said he believed Schwartzberg truly had no understanding what ADAPT wanted; that some of their ideas had been totally inconceivable to her. Schwartzberg said ADAPT was the first group she had ever met with and felt “hostility.” “It was a great shock," she said. “I always thought of myself as being a great advocate. But I wasn’t an advocate enough for them." Schwartzberg said that ADAPT didn’t understand that there were “really frail people in nursing homes — a kind of frailty that these disabled don’t have. “I was really scared that the demonstrators might get harmed, the way they throw themselves out of their chairs.” she went on. “They’re very courageous; I think they're a little reckless. Luckily, nobody’s gotten seriously hurt." “Do you think she really believes the things she says, or do you think it’s just a pose?” a filmmaker wondered. The AMA had issued “a guideline for medical management of homecare patients," she said, and they were putting on 8 seminars for doctors “in managing home care.” She knew ADAPT wanted AMA members to divest themselves of their financial interest in nursing homes and cut nursing home admissions. But the AMA couldn‘t do that, she explained patiently. “We are a voluntary body. not a regulatory body." “They couldn't understand why we couldn‘t do more." she said. The Chicago Tribune was still concerned about the State of lllinois building. Every day Tribune stories had chronicled the increasing security at the site. On Tuesday, Paulette Patterson and another disabled woman filed suit in U.S. District Court alleging denial of access due to increased security. Though a temporary restraining order was not granted, Patterson’s attorney, Matthew Cohen, said filing the suit had had the desired effect. The Tribune covered the suit. Photos by Tom Olin: 1) Two protesters (Spitfire and Jimmi Schrode) in the march raise the power fist to woman leaning out of a second floor window yelling and giving them the thumbs up. Below on the sidewalk most people are just walking by but one older man looks on. Spitfire is wearing her combat helmet. 2) A line of ADAPT protesters face a set of barricades on the other side of which are a line of policemen holding the barricades with both hands. Midway down the line of protesters, a man in a wheelchair (Danny Saenz) is turned toward the camera and another protester (Chris Hronis). 3) Close up of a man in a wheelchair (Rene Luna) who sits in front of an almost life sized portrait of IL Governor Edgar. Rene is holding a poster that reads "nursing home industry owns Edgar." Article continues- Finally, on Wednesday, ADAPT obliged the Tribune and state officials by staging a protest at the building, drawing attention to stale policies that were cutting people off from attendant services in Illinois. On Thursday. the Tribune ran a long story on ADAPT. Calling them "a group of vociferous activists savvy in street action." It quoted a miffed Chicago official who refused to be named saying that "one of the strongest points in their civil disobedience is making themselves look as pathetic as possible.“ “The group's history is rife with attention-grabbing acts of protest." said the Tribune. which compared them to ACT-UP and Earth First! protest `groups`. "Though some may question their tactics. none can doubt they have impact.“ said the Tribune. the end
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The Washington Post, Metro Section 5/6/93 [Headline] The Disabled Plan to Show Washington They're Enabled—and Entitled By Liz Spayd, Washington Post Staff Writer Michael Auberger has shackled his wheelchair to city buses in Dallas. He has barricaded hotel entrances in San Francisco, and he has thrown himself in front of federal buildings, government officials, even oncoming traffic, all to draw attention to the rights of the disabled. This weekend, Auberger and hundreds of other activists from across the country plan to converge on Washington for a three-day blitz of demonstrations and marches in what promises to be the largest protest in history for people with disabilities. “We've written the letters, made the phone calls, had the meetings, and the bottom line is we're still being treated like second-class citizens." said Auberger, co-founder of ADAPT, an activist group that is spearheading the activities. “lf those channels don't work, you take to the streets." Organizers say the immediate purpose of the demonstrations is to demand that the federal government commit more money to helping disabled people live at home, instead of in institutions. At the same time, they want to continue the larger campaign for equal rights that produced the Americans With Disabilities Act, landmark legislation that went into effect last year. A march to the White House and a memorial service for Wade Blank, who was a leader in the movement, are expected to draw the largest crowds, both on Sunday. What may draw the most attention, however, are demonstrations on Monday and Tuesday, when protesters are expected to disrupt Washington with human blockades of buildings and streets. The exact places and times for those actions aren't being disclosed, but the targets could include public buildings, such as the Capitol and the White House, and some federal agencies. “We like to preserve the element of surprise," Auberger said. ADAPT — an acronym for American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today — has been staging protests every six months for more than a decade to fight what it says is the inhumane treatment of the disabled at nursing homes and other institutions. The group said it hopes to redirect 25 percent of the $23 billion in Medicaid funds currently budgeted for nursing homes into programs that would enable those with disabilities to have attendants in their homes. Currently, each state sets policy for how much Medicaid money will go toward attendant care programs, but there is no national policy. [Subheading] Disabled Activists Plan 3-Day Protest The strike on Washington is timed to pressure the Clinton administration into focusing on people with disabilities as part of its package of health care revisions, due out soon, activists said. "Clinton has talked about change and says he wants people to be able to live at home, but what we're looking for is more than just words," said Bob Kafka, an ADAPT organizer in Texas who plans to bring a caravan of about 50 people to Washington. In the past, ADAPT activists have drawn attention to their cause by employing sometimes sensational tactics. They have done belly crawls across hotel lobbies in San Francisco, clawing at passersby. They have taken sledgehammers to street curbs in Denver to protest sidewalks that were inaccessible to wheelchair users. And they have swarmed and blockaded buildings in virtually every major U.S. city; a demonstration in Chicago last spring forced the evacuation of more than 1,000 American Medical Association workers and created disruptions in a half-dozen other downtown facilities. Though such events have attracted media attention, some individuals and `groups` sympathetic to ADAPT’s cause question how effective they are in achieving the larger goal of attaining more money for in-home care. “We're sympathetic to their concerns, but we think the tactics they use bring attention to ADAPT and not the problem," said Claudia Askew, a spokeswoman for the American Health Care Association, which represents 11,000 nursing homes and is a frequent target of ADAPT protests. Disabled people also are somewhat splintered over whether ADAPT's approach helps or hurts their cause. “There are people with disabilities that think ADAPT is a little extreme," said Patrick McCurdy, vice president of Marylanders for Adequate Attendant Care, a group that generally relies on peaceful protests and negotiations to lobby for in-home care. McCurdy did defend ADAPT's technique as a necessary part of an overall approach to force change in a society that he said has long ignored the rights of disabled people. Few spoke up for those rights until recently, but the Americans With Disabilities Act provided new protections to disabled people and helped forge a civil rights movement among the 43 million people with physical or mental impairments. “A great byproduct of the [disabilities act] is the new sense of confidence and empowerment it has instilled within the disability community," said Justin Dart, chairman of the President's Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities, a small federal agency. “It's generated an enormous infusion of dignity and pride." Gregory Dougan, a District resident, said the renewed sense of hope is one reason he will take part in Sunday's march. Dougan, who was born with cerebral palsy and uses crutches, said he is fortunate to be able to live at home. But several of his friends live in institutions because they can't get the in-home care they need. And on Sunday, Dougan said, he will be thinking of them. "I'll be tired at the end of the day," he said, "but my crutches and me are going to that march."
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The Orlando Sentinel Local & state B TUESDAY, October 8, 1991 [This clipping contains two articles. Artilce 1, titled Q & A is a boxed insert. It is continued on a page that are not currently available. Article 2 continues in ADAPT 686 but the entire text of the article is included here for easier reading.] Main Title: Disabled protesters refuse to attend talks Article 1 - Title: Q&A no author given; Lauren Ritchie is interviewer. Mike Auberger discusses why the group of disabled people that he helped organize is protesting the meeting of the American Health Care Association. Auberger was interviewed Monday from his cell at the Orange County Jail by Lauren Ritchie. Question: Why is ADAPT targeting nursing home operators? Answer: The nursing home industry is a $50 billion a year organization. lf you happen to be 30 years old and disabled and live, say, in Ocala —— and there are no personal assistance programs — than you're forced into a nursing home simply because you have physical needs you can't take care of yourself. Q: Why, from your perspective, is that bad? A: If you've ever talked to anybody who's been in a nursing home, the only difference between there and jail is the color of the uniforms. The jail uses guns to keep you there; the nursing home uses pills. You have no choice about when you get up, what you wear, what you eat or don't eat and when you go to bed. When we talk about nursing homes, we talk in terms of incarceration. You never escape from a nursing home. lf you are older and disabled, you could be forced to sell your home, forced to give up everything. The issue is quality of life. Most people can be taken care of in their own homes. Q: Why does ADAPT focus on nursing homes rather than the federal goverment? A: Under the Medicaid program, each state is required to participate in nursing home funding [for the disabled]. Every time a state does a budget it has to identify a certain amount of dollars for nursing homes. If you ... please see Q & A, B-4 Article 2 Photo by Red Huber/Sentinel: The picture is divided almost down the middle by a line of police barricades. On the left side a row of uniformed police officers stand leaning forward, arms stiff, holding the barricades in place. On the right a line of ADAPT protesters (San Anontio Fuentes closest to the camera) face off with the police. Behind them several standing people look on. Caption: A steel barricade and a line of Orange County deputy sheriffs prevent protesters from reaching the doors at the convention center. Title: Deputies expect the protests will grow worse when famous speakers address the convention. By Mary Brooks, of the Sentinel Staff Disabled activists demonstrating at a convention of nursing home operators rejected an offer to meet with industry leaders Monday, calling it a ploy to end their protest. But a spokeswoman for the American Health Care Association, which is playing host to 3,500 people at its annual conference in Orlando, said members of ADAPT -- Americans Disabled for Attendant Programs - seemed more interested in drawing television cameras than in drawing up an agreement at a discussion table. Activists say they plan to continue trying to block entrances to the Orange County Convention and Civic Center until the conference ends Thursday. Deputies expect the worst will come during the visits of the convention's noted speakers. This morning, Red Cross president Elizabeth Dole will address the convention. Television weatherman Willard Scott is scheduled to speak Wednesday. In their second day of demonstrations Monday; about 120 ADAPT members clustered near the three main entrances to the convention center on International Drive. They were barred from approaching the center doors by portable steel fences and 130 Orange County deputy sheriffs. "In the past they've blocked entrances with chains. We want to prevent that," said sheriff's spokesman Cpl. Doug Sarubbi. “They have a right to be here, but the conference attendees have a right to be here. too." Two protesters were arrested late Monday after they refused to stop using a loudspeaker. The protesters, many of them in wheelchairs and a few with guide dogs, sang, chanted and shouted at convention-goers. Tension mounted for several minutes when some of the disabled rammed their wheelchairs into the barricades. There were no injuries. Organizers said the 74 protesters arrested in clashes with deputies on Sunday at the Peabody Hotel on International Drive would not post bond and would remain in the Orange County Jail. Pat Hasley, a hotel security guard who suffered a heart attack during Sunday’s demonstration, was in stable condition Monday at Sand Lake Hospital. Denver-based ADAPT wants Medicaid to funnel 25 percent of the $23 billion nursing home budget to home care for the disabled. The group also wants the chance to address convention participants. “Right now, if you're disabled and need medical services and can’t afford it, they’re going to lock you up" in a nursing home, said Stephanie Thomas, an ADAPT organizer. Demonstrators claimed that 1.6 million disabled people in nursing homes really shouldn’t be there. “We don’t think the extreme needs of a very small percentage should dictate where all the money goes,” said Molly Blank, an organizer from Denver. During about four hours of protest Monday, some convention-goers stood outside the center to watch. Ralph Frasca of Cedar Falls, Iowa, and Mary Scheider of Joliet, Ill., were among a few who ventured over to talk to the demonstrators. “They have a legitimate grievance,” Scheider said. “The main issue is at-home care, diverting funding from institutional care to home care. The funding system now is skewed toward institutional care." Frasca, a journalism professor at the University of Northern lowa, said many convention participants were tumed off by ADAPT’s approach. “The discussion thus far has not centered around issues but rather the sensationalism of the event. I think a non confrontational, peaceful dialogue should be taking place." Linda Keegan, a spokeswoman for the American Health Care Association, said the demonstration did not disturb the convention activities. She said ADAPT had not contacted the association about a meeting or about getting time on the convention agenda before Sunday. She said the health care association’s executive board has met with the group twice this year, each meeting ending in chaos. “We made a commitment to meet. They made a commitment to protest.” The association proposed on Monday to meet with ADAPT on Thursday under the condition that the activists stop protesting. “We don't think that is a good faith offer," said Thomas. The Sheriffs Office and the jail had made extensive preparations for handling the disabled protesters, including special training and added staff. Sarubbi said the Sheriff's Office would not know what the cost would be until the demonstrations are over. Ed Royal, an Orange County Jail administrator, said volunteers from jail ministries were helping to defray some of the costs of handling the disabled inmates. The jail also had to get foam mattresses, diapers, chargers for wheelchair batteries, and other special equipment. The problems of caring for the protesters are many, Royal said. Staff and volunteers had to document and administer medication, and to help inmates relieve, bathe and feed themselves. Jail officials were able to make trades for some supplies with hospitals, but other materials had to be bought. Monday morning, 37 jailed activists began refusing food and liquids and another 10 would not eat but were drinking. Medical staff were monitoring the hunger strikers and were prepared to take them to hospitals if needed, said Royal. On its lawyers’ advice, the corrections department has been videotaping the disabled inmates since their arrival. "They have a history of saying they were mistreated while in custody, so we're taking no chances," said Royal.
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The Guardian, May 27,1992 Photo by Tom Olin: A disabled man dressed all in white (Tim Craven) lies on his back to crawl under a police barricade. Beside him a woman (Barbara Bounds) in a wheelchair leans toward him as if to support and protect him. She is facing the barricade and has a sign taped to the back of her chair that says "People Before Profits." Two police men lean over the barricade toward Tim and another sticks his arm in between them. Behind them are even more officers. On the near side of the barricade yet another officer stands, bending almost all the way forward toward Tim on the ground. Caption reads: Protesters in Chicago got our of their wheelchairs and lay down in front of the barricades, forcing employees to walk over them. Disabled militants bring hope to health reform By Mary Johnson Chicago-Hundreds of members and supporters of ADAPT (American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today) took to the streets here May 10-13 to continue their fight for in-home attendant services and to move the national health-Cate debate into the rights arena. The group is aiming to force the American Medical Association—whose headquarters are here—and the American Health Care Association, the nursing home lobby, to replace “home care" with "attendant services“ which consumers control “in the location and manner of our choice,“ says ADAPT. ADAPT, which under the name American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation won the national fight for wheelchair lifts on buses, intend their street protests as the “flashpoint," says founder Wade Blank, for national health care reform. There is nothing medical about assistance to bathe, eat or dress, these activists charge. Target: Louis Sullivan Learning that Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan would be speaking at University of Chicago commencements on May 10, the 250-strong ADAPT contingent cancelled a Mother‘s Day march and stormed into the university‘s pavilion, planning to disrupt Sullivan's speech. Police and Secret Service agents promptly ejected them, but the group spent the afternoon handing leaflets to graduates‘ families. Sullivan has been a perennial ADAPT target for his refusal to meet with them to discuss Medicaid policy on nursing homes. The next day, ADAPT surrounded the HHS regional offices in downtown Chicago, managing to get up to 15th-floor offices before being blocked by police. Others in the group cordoned off exits, forcing building employees to climb over them, and at one point succeeded in getting department officials into the street to listen to the group‘s demands. Ten protesters were cited and released. On May 12, ADAPT moved to AMA headquarters, blocking adjacent streets and crawling up to bang on office windows. Police barricaded the doors, but protesters got our of their wheelchairs and piled themselves at barricades, forcing AMA employees to step over them when their offices shut down early. Police moved to arrest four people they believed to be in command. The four included Mike Auberger of Denver and Arthur Campbell of Louisville, Ky., who were released later in the day. Garnering media attention Though ADAPT planned to press state targets only on May 13, the state barricaded its downtown State of Illinois Building on the two days before. Guards locked wheelchair access doors and forced wheelchair users to submit to police escort on elevators. On May 12, Chicago ADAPT member Paulette Patterson sued the state over discriminatory denial of access. Though District judge Milton Shadur failed to grant a requested temporary restraining order, Patterson’s attorney, Matthew Cohen, said he had “no doubt the suit had an effect.” On May 13, ADAPT took over the building while city police squabbled with state police over jurisdiction and mostly kept their hands off protesters. Longtime Chicago activists noted ADAPT‘s success in garnering media attention. Chicago Lawyers Guild member Ora Schub said ADAPT‘s protests got more coverage than Gulf war demonstrations in the city — even when antiwar protesters shut down Lake Shore Drive. There seems little question ADAPT has begun to have an impact beyond disability rights. As one of the only groups to take the health reform issue into the streets, ADAPT, says Blank, sees its role “as focusing the debate on a bigger political issue” within health-care reform: services as a legal right. “What the disability rights movement can do is humanize society,” he says. Tennessee ADAPT recently forced the hospital power structure there to accept a state financing fee that will fully fund Medicaid (see sidebar). Lawyer Gordon Bonnyman, who was involved in the Tennessee campaign, remembers a “poverty advocate friend" sending him a clipping about an ADAPT protest in Orlando, Fla., in 1990, when the group first took on the American Health Care Association over the attendant services issue. He and his friend “were despairing about health reform," he said, “asking ourselves when the people who were really affected were going to begin to influence the discussion. "l said, ‘l just don‘t see that ever happening until people are willing to stage some direct actions,‘ " Bonnyman recalls. “Then she sent me that clipping from ADAPT's Orlando action and she said, ‘Here are the folks who could do that.'" “My response at that time was, ‘That’s nice, but how many people is that?‘ I now think: ‘Enough.' ADAPT really does have the ability to have an impact nationally on health care issues-far beyond their own issue of personal attendant services." The group plans similar actions in San Francisco this fall. Second, sidebar, article inserted on this page: Saving Medicaid in Tenn Six people in wheelchairs moved swiftly a cross across the drive-way of the Tennessee Health Care Association in Nashville on March 31. Chaining themselves together, the small band waited for members of the Tennessee Hospital Association to come out of their meeting. It was a classic ADAPT action. This time ADAPT was leading a coalition of health care reformers that would force the state‘s powerful hospital lobby to drop its opposition to a state licensing fee intended to prevent a $1.1 billion loss in federal Medicaid funds. Tennessee pioneered the concept of leveraging matching federal Medicaid funds by levying a state financing fee against hospitals that took Medicaid patients. With its 70-30 match, the state took the $300 million collected from participating hospitals to obtain another $700 million in federal matching funds. With that tactic, Tennessee was fully funding its Medicaid program and feeling no financial crisis. By 1991 it was in use in 37 states, with many reporting similar success. The federal government, alarmed at having to pay out increased Medicaid funds to stares that used this method, devised a plan to derail it. A little-publicized 1991 law made such licensing fees illegal unless levied against all hospitals equally. It counted on opposition from hospitals that took no Medicaid patients (and therefore had no reason to agree to the fees) to fight state passage of licensing fee bills. That opposition was swift in coming in Tennessee. The state is home to Hospital Corporation of America and HealthTrust, two of the nation's largest hospital chains, and numerous other hospitals. The Tennessee Hospital Association, of which Hospital Corporation of America is a powerful member, opposed the fee. A state bill to extend the fee to all hospitals was virtually dead, said Tony Garr, head of the Tennessee Health Care Campaign, until ADAPT of Tennessee, led by organizer Diane Coleman, got involved. “The only way we could bring attention to the issue was to hit the streets,” said Garr. “ADAPT played a very important role" in helping other groups in the Tennessee Health Care Campaign “move to direct action,” said Gordon Bonnyman, a lawyer who has worked with Medicaid issues in Tennessee. Beginning in January, Coleman and Tennessee ADAPT members staged weekly actions, targeting the large hospitals as villains who were destroying the state’s Medicaid program. The first week a group of nearly 200 people, headed by ADAPT, marched to the Hospital Association's offices. The next week the group staged a protest in front of Baptist Hospital, which opposed the fee. The group hung a sign asking “Are you Christian?" on the hospital administrator's portrait. The group‘s fifth action targeted Thomas Frist, who heads Hospital Corporation of America. “We had a small casket, with dollar bills draped over it, and a sign that read, “Thomas Frist, how many must die for your $1.235 million in annual cash compensation?” said Coleman. The protests had the desired effect. Frist, reportedly upset by the negative publicity, capitulated the day the group surged on Health Care Association headquarters with the cross and withdrew his corp0ration’s opposition to the fee—reportedly urging legislators to vote swiftly to pass the law to avoid more unfavorable publicity. “There have been Medicaid cuts for the last 15 years in this country, and they have gone mostly unreported," said Bonnyman. “ADAPT galvanized people. Without them, the whole thing would have gone down the toilet." M.J.
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Title: Deputies prepare for protesters by Christopher Quinn of the Sentinel Staff [This articles continues on 687 but the entire text of the article is included here for easier reading.] PHOTO [AP file photo]: A guy in an ADAPT T-shirt sits on the sidewalk in front of a set of glass doors. His knees are bent but together and his feet are out to each side. His mouth is slightly open and he is wearing a hat. Behind him, through the glass a group of security men are standing holding the door handles and conferring. Caption: A disabled activist sits outside a casino in Sparks, Nev., in an '89 protest. Orange deputies are studying videos of the event. Title: Disabled activists plan to disrupt a convention of nursing home operators. In city after city since 1983, wheelchair-riding activists have climbed from their chairs, dragged themselves along the ground, halted traffic and chained themselves to buildings. On Sunday they’re coming to Orlando. They intend to be arrested, and the Orange County Sheriffs Office plans to accommodate them. Deputies have spent the past month gathering information on how to handle the protesters. "This isn't a win situation. No one wants to arrest paraplegics,” Sheriff Walt Gallagher said Thursday. “But I have to enforce the law.” The activists are members of ADAPT (Americans Disabled for Attendant Programs Today) and they plan to disrupt a convention of nursing home operators. The members believe the federal government spends too much money on nursing homes and too little helping the disabled live at home. The protest is aimed at the American Health Care Association, which is holding its annual meeting Sunday through Thursday at the Orange County Convention and Civic Center. “We want to make life miserable for them," said Mike Auberger, a quadriplegic who cofounded the group and now fights nursing homes. Auberger said the group will try not to inconvenience anyone but convention delegates. He said the convention is a prime target for his group because it is the only place so many nursing home operators gather. The protesters want 25 percent of the federal money spent on nursing homes shifted to home care for the disabled. Law enforcement officials who have dealt with the protesters in other cities say the group's main goal is favorable television coverage. “They'd like nothing better than to have the local media take a picture of three or four big cops taking a guy to the ground.” said Bob Cowman, a lieutenant for the Sparks, Nev., police. Members of the group descended on Sparks, a city near Reno, in 1989. They were stymied, however, when police methodically stopped the activists from disrupting a convention. Sparks officers gently arrested anyone who broke the law. When members threw themselves to the ground and crawled across streets, hoping to be picked up and hauled off to jail, police just watched, frustrating the protesters. The Sparks methods for dealing with the group’s tactics have become the standard other agencies emulate. Orange deputies have spent hours watching videotapes of the Sparks protest. The tapes show legless protesters throwing themselves out of their wheelchairs and walking on their hands across streets. “Members have been known to throw their colostomy bags at the Police,” says a Sparks report on the protest. Auberger said that’s just not true. The Sparks convention and protest were smaller than what is expected in Orange County. The Sparks convention involved 500 delegates and around 100 protesters. The convention here will involve more than 3,000 delegates and more than 300 protesters. “We’re as prepared as we’re going to be,” said Sgt. Jon Swanson, head of sheriffs intelligence. Today a wheelchair-bound consultant will teach deputies how to arrest the disabled without hurting them or damaging the wheelchairs. Starting Sunday a riot squad will be at the convention center 24 hours a day. If the disabled protesters attempt to block traffic or center entrances, 120 deputies will be on hand to make arrests. The county will have to pay as much as $200,000 in overtime. “One hundred and twenty cops isn't going to do it," Auberger said. “That's not enough per person." The cost is in addition to whatever Orange jail chief Tom Allison spends housing arrested activists and tending to their medical needs. Allison said he’s ready to handle hundreds of prisoners in wheelchairs. Swanson and Allison said they hope any activists who get arrested stay in jail a few days. Bonds will be set at $500 for the misdemeanor charges the protesters usually face. Because the activists are from out of state, bail bond agents will be unlikely to help, said John Von Achen, president of the Tri-County Bonding Association. When members have been arrested and freed without bond in other cities, they have immediately returned to the protests to be arrested again. “We don't want to get into a scenario where we arrest them, release them, arrest them, release them, arrest them, release them,” Allison said. Auberger said there is another way: “Not to arrest any of us.” The headquarters hotel for the convention is the Peabody Orlando, across from the convention center, but some delegates are staying up the street at the Clarion Plaza Hotel. The protesters have reserved 90 rooms at the Clarion. The convention schedule calls for delegates to be in seminars at the convention center or in training at Walt Disney World on Sunday and Monday. Auberger said his group might stage a protest at Disney. On Tuesday morning, however, Red Cross president Elizabeth Dole will address the convention. Television weatherman Willard Scott will speak Wednesday. Swanson said the protesters might save their big protest for the speeches. Cowman, the Sparks lieutenant, said Orange deputies just need to expect the worst. “Some of them are basically professional protesters,” he said of the group’s members. But they are severely disabled, and Sparks officers repeatedly offered to help the activists. “You can’t help but feel sorry for these people," Cowman said.
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Disabled occupy Morehouse office ATLANTA (UPI) — About 60 wheelchair-bound protesters occupied the Morehouse College president’s office Monday, demanding a meeting with Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan. The group, American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today, or ADAPT, targeted the predominantly Black college for the demonstration because Sullivan is a former president of the Morehouse School of Medicine. The disabled protesters hoped Morehouse officials would use their influence to arrange a meeting with Sullivan. Morehouse spokesman Robert Bolton said the college’s president was trying to decide on a response to the situation, and was discussing what to do with Health and Human Services officials. ADAPT wants Sullivan to redirect 25 percent of Medicaid’s $17.5 billion nursing home budget to programs that would provide home care for the disabled. “People commit suicide, they die in nursing homes because they don’t have attendant care,”' said Michael Auberger, an organizer of the demonstration. Auberger said ADAPT was not asking for more money. Instead, the group wants funds reallocated to community programs, so disabled people can live at home with assistance. “We’re not talking about nurses,” said Auberger, who is wheelchair- bound. “Typically, most disabled people aren’t sick. For instance, I mostly just need help getting dressed and getting in my(wheelchair). “A national attendant service program would allow people to conceivably become employed when they otherwise wouldn’t" he said. Auberger said ADAPT sent a letter to Sullivan in July requesting a meeting, but had received no response. Dozens of protesters have come to Atlanta from 22 states and as far away as California for a week of demonstrations to dramatize the plight of the disabled.
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November 1992 Access USA News Page 5 Atlantis leads to ADAPT leads to independence Cathy Seabaugh, Staff Writer DENVER,CO-Their offices are relatively small compared to the massive projects the American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today organization tackles. An inconspicuous location in south central Denver serves as national headquarters for the 29 states who have ADAPT chapters. This Colorado town is a gold mine for members of the disabled community, not so much for its accessibility and attitudes, but for the brainstem which this office at 12 Broadway has become. ADAPT representatives throughout the United States act as nerve endings, sending vital messages to the Denver office so it can operate efficiently and effectively. Effectiveness: a term well defined by ADAPT members. ADAPT was conceived and delivered by staff and volunteers of Atlantis Community, founded in 1975 by former nursing home employee Wade Blank and Mike Auberger, a quadriplegic from a bobsledding accident in 1971. Atlantis emerged so that individuals, even those who are severely, multiply-disabled, have the option to live outside an institution. ln its first l5 years, Atlantis was able to successfully transition more than 400 disabled adults from “sheltered settings" to more independent living standards. As an admirable offspring of Atlantis, ADAPT set its own agenda in June 1983 and embarked on an action-packed mission to make public transportation accessible to everyone. American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit set out to train, develop and empower disabled activists so they could effectively battle for that accessibility. Eighteen members of the Atlantis community had taken the first strides toward accessible public transportation in Denver when they gathered on July 5&6, 1978, to block city buses at Broadway and Colfax across from the state capitol. ‘Then in 1982, after beating up the board enough," said Auberger, one of the 18, "they decided they'd buy all lift-equipped buses." Once ADAPT formed the next year, the foundation was in place. With Denver as a model, activists began chipping away at other cities’ granite-like, antiquated public transportation systems. "(Former President Jimmy) Carter appointed Brock Adams in 1976 and Adams set a federal mandate that all new buses bought with federal money had to have (wheelchair) lifts,” Auberger said. "Under the Reagan administration, APTA (American Public Transit Association) sued (to avoid the lift requirements) and won. "APTA was having its national convention in Denver in October 1983 and about 20 people from across the country showed up to join about 22 people from Denver. We sent notice to (APTA) that their convention would not go uninterrupted if they did not meet with us. They went to the mayor, but he said he wouldn't protect them unless they agreed to meet with us.” ADAPT met APTA there. They would meet many more times. "We decided wherever they had a convention, we would go,” Auberger said. "It moved us around to communities where they'd never been exposed to the issues. People all of a sudden became aware. "If we're talking about the issues, people are going to form an opinion. You polarize people. Whether they support you or not is not the point. If there's not an opinion there, you can't change it." The deep roots, pockets or whatever of APTA were a long-time barrier for ADAPT. But as the Americans with Disabilities Act cemented and included regulations for public transportation, APTA’s resistance to ADAPT's demands weakened until the federal govemment finally made ADA the law. With that priceless piece of legislation signed and inducted into the pages of history, ADAPT was ready for its next mission. "What we said at that point to members was to put out feelers in your communities,” Auberger said. "What we found was personal assistants was the biggest issue of concern.” Retaining the ADAPT acronym, the group devised new plans to force change in the long-term health care system of the United States. “At least 60 percent of ADAPT members have (resided) in nursing homes at one time or another,” Auberger said, "The other 40 percent have spent their lives trying to avoid going into one.” Although ADAPT and Atlantis are neither to lose its identity in the other, they are a family unit and work together toward change. Atlantis is a certified home health care agency, making 53,000 visits each year in Denver and Colorado Springs, serving approximately 85 clients. “That's 365 days a year, whether there's three feet of snow on the ground or it's 105 degrees," Auberger said. “We have a 24-hours-a-day emergency backup system that works probably 98 percent of the time." One Atlantis client is a C2 quadriplegic who is on a ventilator nonstop. Yet he is allowed to live in his own home with the help of Atlantis personal attendants. "That shows you our capabilities,” Auberger said. ”We can provide 24-hour care for about $7,500 a year. A nursing home would do it for $20,000.” ADAPT’s scrapbook for the past two years includes protests in almost countless cities throughout the country. Wherever Dr. Louis Sullivan, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, made a speech or appearance, ADAPT added itself to the invitation list. The protests usually involved arrests, which is a proven effective tool for drawing media coverage. Radical activity, some say. "We really give the middle-of-the-road disabled community members the power to make change," Auberger said. "We make them look sane. “It's like in Illinois, Gov. Edgar didn't have a problem meeting with the straight group who went to Springfield because they were sane. lf he dealt with our radical group, he'd have to deal with all radical groups. We really give (middle-of-the-road community members) a platform." ADAPT picks on Sullivan because, they say, he can initiate change. They argue that Sullivan's signature is all that's necessary to require the states receiving Medicaid to provide personal assistants. Just more than half the states provide such funding and many; if not all, of those programs are underfunded, restricted and far short of meeting the demand. ADAPT seeks to convince Health and Human Services - Sullivan - to take one-third of the $15 billion Medicaid dollars and commit it to home-based, consumer-controlled services. "Every state that buys into Medicaid has to fund nursing homes,” Auberger said, explaining how the system currently works. Sixty-five percent of all money paid to nursing homes is Medicaid funds. "States have little play in what they can do with Medicaid.” Nursing homes use what's called a “cold bed rate" which refers to the empty beds in their institutions that are not producing income. Lobbyists for the nursing home industry are looking at these rates and profit margins, not at long-term care that allows individuals to retain their independence. "We’ve become a valuable commodity,” Auberger said. "It's a normal mindset to put someone in a nursing home. This is so ingrained in our society. There's currently no alternative, and most people aren't able to envision the type of care we're talking about." Auberger encourages every person he can to write letters to members of Congress, senators and other politicians who can have an impact on the future of people with disabilities. "When you do that, you raise a level of consciousness,” he said. "You don't have to mention (the numbers), just the concept. "The logic is the problem. When parents are doing (personal attendant care), for free, it doesn't have to be skilled. When Medicaid pays for that same care, a nurse has to do it.” Statistics provided by the American Health Care Association show the average lifespan on an individual in a nursing home is 21 months. "You can't convince me there's quality care in a nursing home," Auberger said. "We (at Atlantis) are non-medical personal attendants. When the staff goes into a home, the person in that home is the boss. We do things the way they want us to do them. "People don't have to give up their power to able-bodied people. But it's okay to share the power." Although many members of the disabled community have made endorsements this election year, ADAPT chooses to remain rather neutral - for a change. "Don't pick a side,” Auberger said. "As soon as you pick a side and that side loses, you now have an enemy on the other side. That's been real effective tor us. We'll rate candidates on disability issues, but we won't endorse anyone. "If there's a disability issue in Colorado, legislators call here, the media calls here. We're a powerful entity in this state. As hundreds of ADAPT activists confronted the annual conference of the nursing home industry in San Francisco October 19-21, the power of this entity spread toward the Pacific. Persons interested in more information about ADAPT can call Auberger or Wade Blank at (303) 733-9324 (voice and TDD). INSERT AT CENTER OF PAGE: Across the top in bold letters the word "ATLANTIS" and below that ADAPT's new Free Our People logo, the wheelchair access symbol with it's arms raised above its head breaking chains that are bound to it's wrists. Above this figure, in a semi-circular pattern the words "Free Our People" and below, also in a semi-circular pattern, "ADAPT"