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Home / Albums / Tag lawsuit 21
Creation date / 2013 / July
- ADAPT (628)
Edition USA/Colorado ADAPT seeks home care for all by Kerri S. Smith A national disabled persons’ advocacy organization based in Denver has launched a campaign aimed at moving people from nursing homes to home care. American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today (ADAPT) has at short-term goal: to re-direct 25 percent on the government's annual nursing home care budget. That money—estimated at $5.5 billion federal money and $5.5 billion from state coffers-would fund a national home care program instead. Under the ADAPT proposal, nursing home residents whose care is covered by Medicare or Medicaid could live at home. The government would pay home are attendants to care for them, rather than paying the facility. ADAPT spokesperson Mike Auberger said the group seeks “the ultimate demise of the nursing home system," and contends that paying an attendant to provide home care for a person usually costs less than nursing home care. In theory, the ADAPT plan would spend government money more efficiently-the same money would be used to care for more people who need assistance. The government is not enthusiastic about the idea, and a local nursing home industry spokesperson said ADAPT's demands are unrealistic. Auberger said Health and Human Services secretary Louis Sullivan declined to meet with ADAPT representatives. "We've been going back and forth with them, and the outcome is he doesn't meet with radical groups," Auberger said. And Arlene Linton, executive director of the Colorado Health Care Association (CHCA), said moving nursing home residents out of facilities “would isolate many of them from the community. “They'd also be without the 24-hour-care and rehabilitative services provided in nursing homes," Linton said. CHCA is the local branch of the American Health Care Association, which represents the nursing home industry. Linton added that ADAPT "is talking dollars, not people. Some residents have outlived their family and friends, and need the support a nursing home offers." A national campaign to publicize ADAPT's proposal began Jan. 15. Members demonstrated at government offices (including Health Care Financing Administration offices) and nursing homes in 24 cities. Auberger said media coverage was minimal, due to the Persian Gulf Crisis. Locally, ADAPT representatives demonstrated in Lakewood at Bethany Care Center. In the mid-'70s, the facility was operated by different owners and was known as Heritage House. Conditions at that time sparked a 13-year lawsuit over nursing home residents’ rights. The Federal Omnibus Reconciliation Act (OBRA) of 1988 also addressed quality of life issues for nursing home residents. The bill became effective Oct. 1, 1990. ln 1974, former Heritage House residents joined with Denverite Wade Blank and others to form the Atlantis Community, a local home care agency that currently cares for 135 people in Denver and Colorado Springs. Later, Atlantis Community leaders founded ADAPT. The group mobilized the civil rights movement for disabled persons, and ultimately affected the way nursing homes are inspected and regulated nationally. Auberger claims many current nursing home patients don't require intensive medical care, and "end up there only because they're out of money or their families can't care for them." Linton said CHCA met with ADAPT representatives twice to discuss the attendant proposal, "but they rejected our request to form a task force to find common ground." While Linton endorses home care as “a part of the long-term care continuum," she called the ADAPT proposal “robbing Peter to pay Paul. "We cannot support the concept of lowering funding for nursing home patients, to set up another funding to attendant services," Linton said. “We need new, additional funding for that." Recent federal budget cuts may make additional funding unlikely, at least in the near future. Atlantis and ADAPT are determined, however, and they are prepared for a long campaign. - ADAPT (221)
[no source or date included] ADAPT has been targeting APTA because of a lawsuit which APTA filed and ultimately won. Under the Carter Administration, the Department of Transportation (DOT) issued regulations in response to 504, which required all new buses to have wheelchair lifts. APTA filed suit saying that congress didn't intend 504 to put undue financial demands on the local transit authorities. The requirement for every bus to be lift-equipped was costly and cumbersome. APTA lost in the lower court, but appealed. The appeals court agreed with APTA that 504 didn?t mandate that all buses be lift-equipped. At present, every transit authority must make an effort to provide service to the elderly and disabled populations. There is an upper limit on the amount of money which must be spent on this service. Since para-transit is an expensive way to provide transportation services, the demand often exceeds the service available. California and Michigan have state laws requiring fully accessible transportation. In other states, transit authorities have started removing lifts from buses saying it is their "local option" to provide a fixed amount of para-transit instead of providing fixed route service. ADAPT promises to see APTA next year in Detroit. - ADAPT (223)
MAinstream magazine [No date] [This story continues in ADAPT 222, but is contained here in its entirety for reading ease.] [Headline] ADAPT takes the fast lane to make transit accessible By Michael Ervin San Antonio—The first indication that something was about to happen came when an oversized, stretch-limo of a van pulled up beside the Alamo and a wheelchair lift uncurled out of the back door. The colorful banner on the side of the van read: ACCESS FOR ALL. Six more people in wheelchairs were in another van parked in a lot down the street. As they proceeded down the sidewalk to join the demonstration in front of the Alamo the pedestrians stopped and looked them over. A parade of people in wheelchairs is bound to draw stares. But the expressions accompanying these stares were unique—welcoming, supportive, somewhat star struck. Maybe they knew they were coming. Before the 50 or so members of various chapters of American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit even arrived here there were stories in the media about previous ADAPT confrontations with the American Public Transit Association (APTA.) Television news showed footage of the mass arrests that occurred last October in Washington, D.C. when ADAPT members tried to force their way into the center where APTA was holding its annual convention. That's the kind of escalating media coverage Wade Blank likes to see. He’s the main force behind ADAPT. “We're becoming famous. When we had our first ADAPT meeting in Denver in 1982, our goal was to make the officials of any city we were coming to nervous. We wanted them to say, ‘No! Not here! We don’t want ‘em!’” They were certainly nervous in San Antonio. When a horde of people in wheelchairs showed up at the offices of the local transit authority for a noisy demonstration, the employees locked themselves in a large office as if they were afraid ADAPT was going to take them out one by one and shoot them. And when the march that began at the Alamo turned into an equally raucous occupation of the lobby of the posh hotel where APTA people were staying, hotel security had no idea what to do. And the bewildered looks of the innocent tourists were amusing. They’d certainly never seen anything like that before. “Seeing a bunch of disabled crazies blocking buses and doing things like that redefines everything everybody’s been conditioned to believe about the disabled," Blank says. This radical redefinition of what the disabled are (in the eyes of both the disabled and nondisabled) is what ADAPT is all about. And having stuffy APTA conferences and conventions as a backdrop helps make that point. APTA’s primary sin, according to ADAPT, is that it spent big bucks on a lawsuit that struck down the federal mandate that all fixed-route public buses be lift-equipped. ADAPT sees equal transit access as the most basic civil right. “It's the same segregation as when blacks had to sit in the back of the bus or yield their seats to whites. Except it’s even worse,” says Blank. “The disabled can’t even get on the bus.” By using APTA as a symbol of the stifling paternalism that keeps the disabled in a position of dependency, ADAPT makes the immorality of inaccessible public transit quite clear. *** Wade Blank is an ordained minister who never goes to church. “It’s in the true Jesus tradition. He was kicked out of the synagogue and never went back.” Blank worked in a nursing home for a few years after seminary. It frustrated him to see the disabled friends he made there stuck there simply because they had no place else to go. So in 1976 he and some others began Atlantis, an independent living center in Denver. ADAPT was born of Atlantis. Blank says Atlantis likes to “do the impossible” in terms of working with clients who have the deepest holes of dependency to dig out of. Frank, a man with cerebral palsy who was part of the ADAPT Denver caravan to San Antonio, was sprung by Atlantis in 1976 from a nursing home he had been in since 1934. Another woman began feeding herself for the first time when she became part of Atlantis. She was always physically able to. Her mother just didn't want her making a mess. Another woman had never seen a head of lettuce. Her salads had always come to her prepared. It’s rather stunning seeing people who were mired in the world of please and thank you traveling around the country, blocking buses and maybe getting arrested. It’s gotten ADAPT and Atlantis in trouble with irate relatives. The father of a woman arrested for blocking buses in Denver told Wade that since he was a reverend he must be brainwashing his daughter into joining his cult, just like Jim Jones. He said he was going to tell the newspapers so they could investigate. But Blank says, “All we’re saying to people in Atlantis and ADAPT is, ‘You are an important person.’ I just tell them (the irate relatives) that people get excited when they see that they are important and that they are expected to be somebody.” In 1978, it became clear that the mission of Atlantis could never be fully accomplished as long as Denver’s public transit system was totally inaccessible. What good was it to set someone up in an accessible apartment if they couldn’t move beyond it? They might as well have still been in the nursing home. So the Atlantis people took to the streets of Denver. They blocked buses. They held sit-ins in the transit authority offices. They got arrested. But four years later, they won and Denver is on its way to full access. [Bordered text box in center of page: “We created a drama and let it unfold . . .I guess we raised consciousness.”] The next year, APTA made the mistake of holding its convention in Denver. The target was too tempting for Atlantis to resist. Here was the personification of everything Atlantis opposed right on its step and begging to be hit. Atlantis formed a permanent transportation component call ADAPT. They organized confrontations around the convention and vowed to follow APTA everywhere until it passed ADAPT ’s resolution renouncing the lawsuit and the damage it did. These confrontations would also provide a focal point and a training ground for activists from other cities so they could form their own ADAPT chapters. Mike Auberger of Atlantis is a quadriplegic resulting from a bobsled accident during the 1972 Olympic time trials. “When we started ADAPT, we were a bunch of crazy nuts. A year later, we were a possibility. Now, we’re a reality. We started in one city and here we are about 20 cities. We must be selling something everybody needs.” The hope is that the feeling of self-importance that inspired the disabled of Denver will be as infectious in San Antonio and in cities all over America. ADAPT paved the way in San Antonio by creating a three-day headache for the police and transit authority and forcing them to take the issue very seriously. They also permanently etched the issue on the minds of the people of San Antonio with pictures on the front page of the newspaper of disabled people blocking APTA tour buses. “We created a drama and let it unfold,” Blank says. “I was talking to a reporter and I said, ‘I guess we raised consciousness.’ She said, ‘Boy did you! That’s all this town is talking about.’ ” “Now you can’t say that about too many political movements today.” But even if it doesn’t play in San Antonio, Auberger sees what happened there as another battle won. “Again we took on APTA and beat them. You’ve got this guy in a $300 suit and a designer tie with his initials and a soup stain on it. More and more people are starting to see APTA that way.” If success can be judged by police reaction, ADAPT is accomplishing a lot. Knowing ADAPT ’s penchant for blocking buses, the police routed buses away from areas with high ratios of wheelchair-users. They obviously did their homework by talking to police in other cities who had to deal with ADAPT. A television news report even told of how San Antonio police intelligence photographers were following ADAPT members around. And it’s clear that transit authorities are taking ADAPT very seriously too. The next target is Los Angeles, where APTA will hold its convention in October. ADAPT has obtained a copy of a private memo of the Southern California Rapid Transit District that speaks of the authority’s plans to spend $10,000 to $15,000 to “handle vast numbers of wheelchair bound people” who will be coming to town. “While confrontations cannot be stopped, they can be blunted.” It speaks of how the RTD is “searching for ways to diffuse or ward off demonstrations,” perhaps by pacifying everyone for a few days with a conference on accessible transit [ibid]. “Can we take control by creating a hospitality center for the handicapped?” the memo says. Who can resist such an opportunity. ADAPT is on its way. - ADAPT (43)
The Denver Post - Thursday October 2, 1975 [Headline] Muscular Dystrophy Wins Battle [Subheading] Mike Died at Atlantis - a Dream Come True by Fred Gillies Michael Smith died Wednesday afternoon in the place where he wanted to be - the Atlantis Community in Denver. Atlantis was Mike's dream come true: a fledgling community where he and 13 other handicapped persons could live in dignity as individuals, attempting to realize their full potential. But the dream died Wednesday for Mike as muscular dystrophy, the dark angel that lived with him for most of his slightly more than 21 years, won the final battle. Mike and other Atlantis residents came into the public view late in June when a Denver Post story told of the hardships they were suffering as the result of bureaucratic bungling which had delayed the Social Security checks the Atlantis residents needed to pay their living expenses there. At that time, Mike was semiconscious and not expected to live. But he later rallied, as he had three other times in the past year when he was close to death. For the past three months, Mike generally had been confined to his bed and most of the time used an oxygen tank to ease his breathing. In recent weeks, Mike had started composing poetry again — one of his favorite pastimes and the one that seemed to allow, him to escape from the physical helplessness forced upon him by muscular dystrophy. Mike also was following closely the progress of a legal action that he and other handicapped persons had filed in Denver federal court to ensure the handicapped the same rights as all other persons. And with the help of Atlantis staff members, Mike was planning his first vacation in many years: a plane trip to Houston, Texas. Two of the Atlantis staff were to accompany him there. But last Sunday night, Mike's condition suddenly worsened. His kidneys apparently had started to shut down. Carbon dioxide was building up in his body, affecting the brain and causing respiratory problems. Mike was taken Monday to Denver General Hospital, where blood tests were completed. But Atlantis officials said doctors at the hospital concluded that there wasn't much that could be done. And Mike was adamant: he didn't want to undergo another operation to cut into his windpipe to ease his breathing just a little longer. He didn’t want to be hooked up to all kinds of machines and medical equipment. He wanted to be left alone and to he allowed to die in peace and at Atlantis. Mike was permitted to "come home" to Atlantis on Tuesday. But now he was required to wear a full face mask utilizing a nebulizer which sprayed a mixture of oxygen and water steadily into his weakening lungs. On Wednesday morning, Mike twice had been taken off the nebulizer briefly while adjustments were made, and there were no complications, Wade Blank, Atlantis co-director said. But Wednesday afternoon, after the nebulizer had been removed for another swift adjustment, Mike died. “He relaxed, went to sleep and just stopped breathing," said his mother, Mrs. Joanne Davis of Central City, Colo., who was with him. Mike’s mother will fulfill his wish that the only flowers at his funeral be one red rose which she will provide and keep afterward. Mike also had asked that persons planning to send flowers for his funeral might instead send donations to Atlantis at 2965 W. 11th Ave. Early last July, Mike and a friend put together a book of about 35 of Mike's poems, written over the past seven years. At the time of Mike's death, the manuscript still was being circulated among publishers. One of these poems - “With the Wind, I Leave" - tells of Mike’s leaving his love, “leaving the oceans, fields and mountains that were my life.” But then he tells of finding "a peace and wisdom that no one can take away.” And the poem concludes with Mike's quiet admonition: "So when you remember me, think of the oceans, fields and mountains. Think of the wind that blows in the spring and you will know that I am free." Services for Mike will be at 2 p.m. Saturday at the Olinger Mortuary, 16th and Boulder Sts. A copy of Mike's book of poems will be with him when he is cremated, as he had wished. 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 Listens as His Poetry is Read. He was photographed in June after moving to Atlantis. - ADAPT (44)
[Rocky Mountain News] Banner Headline for story in ADAPT 45 and 46. PHOTO on left of headline: Head and shoulders shot of a young man (Michael Smith) with dark hair, pulled back in ponytail, dark beard and moustache. His head is tilted slightly to one side and he is smiling a bit. Caption reads: Michael Smith. He had a dream; He prayed that He would walk again someday. But someday never came. [Headline] Late poet a plaintiff in nursing home case Page 5 - ADAPT (45)
Rocky Mountain News Mon., March 22, 1976, Denver, Colo. Banner Headline for story. PHOTO on left of headline: Head and shoulders shot of a young man (Michael Smith) with dark hair, pulled back in ponytail, dark beard and moustache. His head is tilted slightly to one side and he is smiling a bit. Caption reads: Michael Smith. He had a dream; He prayed that He would walk again someday. But someday never came. [Headline] Late poet a plaintiff in nursing home case Page 5 [Banner headline in ADAPT 44. Story starts here in ADAPT 45 and continues in ADAPT 46, but the entire text is included here for ease of reading.] Late poet was plaintiff in nursing home lawsuit By Jonathan Dedmon, News Staff Michael Smith was a poet. A victim of muscular dystrophy, Michael wasn't able to hold a pen, however. Weighing less than 100 pounds, one of the few physical tasks he was able to perform was to turn the pages of the many books he read. He would keep stanzas of poetry stored in his head and wait for friends or staff at the Heritage House Nursing Home in Lakewood where he lived to have free time so he could dictate his verse. A former aide remembers when she would be busy caring for patients and Mike would say, "Got to write." "We'd say, ‘Sorry, Mike‘ Don‘t have time.‘ A lot of his poetry was lost." In addition to being a poet, Mike also was an idealist. Because of what friends say was that idealism, in spite of the fact Mike died in October at the age of 21, he lives on not only in a published book of his poems but also in a giant legal battle in U.S. District Court. THE BATTLE COULD have a large impact on the care of handicapped patients in nursing homes throughout the country since it attacks the entire method of delivering health care. The suit, in which Mike was an original plaintiff, charges nursing home patients routinely are being denied their rights and even fundamental medical care, contrary to the wishes of Congress in its Medicaid law. U.S. Judge Richard Matsch currently is considering how much jurisdiction the federal court has in the case. But already a number of patients and nursing home employees have come forward with a series of affidavits which are a litany of patient abuse. The charges are leveled primarily against the former Heritage House Nursing Center in Lakewood, which since has been sold and is operating under new management and a new name. The suit’s allegations range from patients not having the colostomy bags changed to failure of the staff to provide any rehabilitation efforts. THE NURSING HOME attorney and a part owner deny the charges which are contained in a half dozen affidavits filed with the court. Pam Malpass worked as an aide from August 1974 to February of last year. Here are parts of her affidavit: “People were punished sometimes by having their wheelchairs turned off, cut their mobility (sic). Wheelchairs at Heritage House were constantly in disrepair and falling apart leading to weekly crises. Paul Brae, a Heritage House resident, fell out of his chair because it was falling apart and crawled under his bed and said he was (sic) [not] going to come out until he got a new wheelchair [cut off] we procured for him with some difficulty. Bowel programs for a number of residents weren't maintained properly resulting in infections. Colostomies and catheters weren't cleaned properly or regularly also resulting in infections for a number of patients. I also often observed that colostomy bags and catheters improperly were connected to the people that needed them with the result that they leaked and backed up." Michael Ray, an orderly from May 1974 to January of last year, said in his affidavit that on at least a dozen occasions, he made marks with a felt-tipped pen on patients’ dressings on open bed sores to make sure they were being changed twice a day as they should have been. “Each time when I looked, a day later, sometimes longer, the dressings I had put on with the markings were still there. The unclean sores lead to more serious complications and infections. During the six months I was working at Heritage House I never saw a doctor." FAILURE TO MAINTAIN a bowel program can lead to bowel poisoning and even to surgery. Mark Biles was impacted for three weeks while I was there necessitating an elaborate program of oral laxatives, suppositories and enemas to give him relief. The owners and the administrators always met suggestions or requests from the staff on behalf of patients residing there with the remark that they cost too much or if you don't like it why don't you get the hell out. “The only time that Heritage House was concemed about the cleanliness of the home was when the state inspection team announced it would appear.” ACCORDING TO JOHN Holland, who heads a team of Legal Aid attorneys working on the case, “We're saying that when Congress established Medicaid, it intended to create a real system of delivering high quality medical care to poor people, not a system that couldn't deliver for a significant number. The benefits aren't getting there.” A particular target is the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW), which is charged with making sure nursing homes comply with federal standards to insure high quality health care. Legal Aid, which is reluctant to say too much about the case because it is pending, feels HEW merely established a “paper compliance" system whereas Congress wanted a compliance system to “see benefits and rights delivered and prevent the kinds of injuries and deprivations of rights alleged in the suit." THE SUIT NAMES every rung in the bureaucracy which participates in the provision of nursing home care, ranging from the owners of Heritage House to the state Department of Social Services and HEW. In addition to asking for monetary damages, the suit also seeks an injunction prohibiting deprivation of medical care and patient rights. The rights include proper medical and psychosocial treatment and care, the right to seek legal counsel and manage personal monies, the right to voice grievances and the right to adequate notice and opportunity for a hearing prior to transfer, among others. It also asks HEW to come up with a decent system of enforcing compliance with such federal laws. Because of the complex nature of the suit, it already has become a “paper nightmare," according to Holland, and a “paper war,“ according to Heritage House attomey Bob Eberhardt. THE PLEADINGS STAND some two feet high and the court hasn't decided jurisdiction yet. Perhaps one of the most damning affidavits filed so far is by Janice Jacobson, a former administrator of Heritage House. “Heritage House was filthy, cockroaches had infested the entire home (with the exception of the kitchen). The walls wene very dirty and an odor of urine permeated the air. “Flies were everywhere. They present a particular problem to those persons who are bedfast or paralyzed because they can't swat the flies from their faces or bodies. “Temperature controls were broken. Zone control valves which control the room temperature were corroded either open or shut so that the rooms were unbearably hot or cold. “INDIVIDUAL CARE PLANS are either totally inadequate or not existent." “Patients who had to be fed were degraded by impatient orderlies who constantly hurried them along faster than they could comfortably go on the pretext of there not being enough time to feed them." “Staff would get angry with people for having something wrong with them like uncontrolled bowels." “Lots of patients would never get dressed every day. The staff didn’t like to take the time to dress them. By keeping patients undressed a general institutional goal of keeping them in bed and more inactive was more readily achieved. “It was not uncommon for people who did get dressed to not be undressed but rather to sleep in their clothes. l received complaints from one family that one of the male patients there had the same clothes on for weeks. They knew because the same spot was on his shirt for three weeks." “Visitors and relatives often complained that their relatives or friends hadn't received baths or showers for weeks." “It was reported to me by nursing staff the director of nursing believed physical correction of resident misconduct was permissible and that she employed a technique of having persons she decided were misbehaving placed in cold showers." “The call button system at Heritage House often wasn't working and when it was, working staff very often didn't respond to calls. There was one incident while I was there where family members called in and said they heard their mother was dead. The nurse had to go down to the room to see if this was so. The woman had been dead for several hours." Mrs. Jacobson says, in her view, Heritage House was “warehousing people, not delivering health care." "Residents had no more rights than children and the official view was that the staff knew what was best for them and if the patients didn't think we were doing everything right or what they needed they could just leave." Management expressed this view often. “PATIENTS WERE KEPT tractable and quiescent by intimidation and medication. Encouraging people to be as normal as they can be is the essence of good nursing care. It was not done at Heritage House.“ In response, Heritage House attorney Eberhardt said the accusations are “totally untrue and completely without foundation. You can't cross-examine affidavits. The truth will come out in the trial. “ He also points to the affidavit of Allen Buckingham, regional director of the HEW office of Long Term Care Standards Enforcement. Buckingham stated his office never received any complaints concerning the allegations. Oscar Gross, former part owner and also a defendant, said he never would have been able to keep his license if the allegations were true. In addition, he said his home was the only home to provide a wing specifically for handicapped youths and he even received two awards from the wing. “We tried to do our best," he said. He also offered to take the News to the home to interview patients about conditions. He said his wife still visits patients. Gross sold the home in February and it now is under new management. Gross said he sold the home simply as “a business transaction.“ Before Michael Smith died last year, he testified at one hearing on the case. “He already felt he had won," recalled Mrs. Malpass. - ADAPT (94)
Rocky Mountain News Wed., Dec. 9,1981, Denver, Colo. [Headline] Handicapped set back in battle for lifts on buses The Operations Committee of the Regional Transportation District’s board of directors voted 4-0 Tuesday to stick by an earlier proposal that RTD buy 89 articulated buses scheduled for delivery in 1983 without wheelchair lifts. Its action seriously diminishes the chances that the board will reverse its decision of Nov. 19 to delete the lifts from the articulated buses. But RTD Executive Director L.A. Kimball and three board members agreed to ask the board to reconsider the action after members of the Atlantis Community for the disabled staged a sit-in at RTD headquarters on the day of the earlier vote to protest the decision. The board held a three-hour special meeting on Dec. 1 to hear appeals from the handicapped to put wheelchair lifts on the buses. Atlantis spokesman Wade Blank said members of his organization have been discussing the issue with individual board members and plan to meet with Kimball next week. Blank said he expects to fall short of the 11 votes needed for the board to reverse its position when the issue comes up at the board’s regular meeting on Dec. 17. Blank renewed Atlantis’ threat to file a lawsuit challenging the decision not to buy the lifts and said Atlantis will resume demonstrating against RTD. Atlantis filed a lawsuit in federal court and staged a series of demonstrations aimed at RTD a few years ago after RTD bought nearly 200 AM General buses without wheelchair lifts. U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch ruled against Atlantis in that case, but the case was on appeal when Atlantis and RTD in 1979 negotiated a settlement under which RTD agreed to make half of its peak-hour fleet accessible to the handicapped. The settlement was reached after the federal Department of Transportation issued regulations requiring that all new buses bought with federal funds be equipped with wheelchair lifts and that half of all buses used for peak-hour service be accessible to the handicapped. Those regulations were rescinded by the department in July. RTD officials ordered the articulated buses with lifts in March, while the regulations requiring lifts on new buses were still in effect. Buying the buses without lifts will save $1.1 million, 80 percent of RTD’s federal funds, RTD officials said. - ADAPT (95)
Rocky Mountain News, Fri., Sept. 2, 1977, Denver, Colo p.6 [Headline] Handicapped seek ruling on RTD service By CLAIRE COOPER News Staff Wheelchair-bound witnesses Thursday urged a federal judge to order the Regional Transportation District to equip new buses with devices to facilitate transportation of the disabled. RTD has 231 buses on order. Only 18 of them will be outfitted for passengers in wheelchairs. Handicapped and elderly plaintiffs have filed a lawsuit in Denver U.S. District Court claiming RTD will discriminate against them if it fails to provide them with suitable bus transportation. The plaintiffs have asked that the buses be equipped with boarding ramps or hydraulic lifts and with interior devices to hold wheelchairs in place. During the hearing before Judge Richard P. Matsch, an arthritic youth complained that he faces “social isolation“ because of lack of transportation. ROBERT CONRAD SAID. “lf l don‘t get out, l’ll go crazy. I don't like looking at four walls." Conrad said it’s often impossible for him to board regular buses because oi‘ the pain in his legs. When he can do it, he said, he suffers embarrassment because it takes him three minutes to negotiate the steps. Other witnesses also complained about the social and psychological consequences of being unable to use the public transportation system. Glenn Kopp said he feels like “a second-class citizen.” Kopp is co-director of Atlantis Community Inc., an organization of disabled persons. His job is to help the handicapped become self-sufficient. But for Kopp to go to work, he said, "I have to depend on somebody to pick me up.” Carolyn Finnell said, “I just don't like using people as tools" for transportation. Marilyn Weaver said the lack of transportation isolates her from" her friends and her parents. "They do come to see me, but it would be nice sometime to go home," she said. Ms. Weaver and others testified that economic burdens are forced on them by the necessity of hiring private transportation. Ms. Weaver said she spends about $120 a month, one-fifth of her income, for “ambocabs," a private taxi service for passengers in wheelchairs. Ambocab charges $18 for a round trip, Kopp said. Ms. Weaver claimed the high cost deters all but essential use. “I should be getting therapy more than I do,“ said the 38-year-old polio victim, adding that her financial situation determines whether she can afford transportation to her therapist. SEVERAL WITNESSES said confinement to their neighborhoods means they have to pay more for groceries and other necessities. Kopp said he doesn’t like to ask friends to take him shopping because it takes along time him to go through the stores. The witnesses said RTD’s HandiRide service for the disabled isn't a good solution to their transportation problems because it makes only scheduled stops at medical facilities, schools and places of employment. Ms. Weaver, who works at Atlantis, said she takes the HandiRide to work because she starts at a set time. But she has no set quitting time, so she can't take it home. According to the complaint, HandiRide serves fewer than 150 persons. The complaint says about 17,600 persons in the Denver-Boulder area are being denied public transportation because of "unnecessary physical and structural barriers in the design of transit buses." Lawyers representing RTD have not presented defense testimony. The hearing continues Friday. - ADAPT (105)
Denver Post 1/82 PHOTO (no credit given): A man in a wheelchair (Stephen Saunders) is tipped back in a wheelie by one man, as another bends forward over his legs and reaches down on the side of his wheelchair. Behind them a couple of police officers are visible. Caption reads: Stephen Saunders is carried away from the offices of the Regional Transportation District during a January protest over an RTD decision to not make some new buses accessible to the handicapped. [Headline] RTD Fighting Handicapped Act By Howard Pankratz Denver Post Staff Writer The Regional Transportation District, long at odds with various segments of Denver’s handicapped community is asking Denver District Judge Harold Reed to declare the Colorado Handicapped Act unconstitutional. At the time the state Legislature passed the act, it said it was doing so to “encourage and enable the blind, the visually handicapped, the deaf, the partially deaf, and the otherwise physically disabled to participate fully in the social and economic life of the state and to engage in remunerative employment.” But RTD in motions filed in recent weeks with Reed, has charged that the statue is unconstitutionally vague and overbroad. RTD also says that those who violate the act are subject to a criminal penalty. In particular, RTD lawyers Alan E. Richman and Lawrence D. Stone take aim at a section the act which says the handicapped are “entitled to full and equal housing and full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities, and privileges of all common carriers, airplanes, motor vehicles, railroad trains, motor buses, streetcars, boats or any other public conveyances or modes of transportation…” Does that mean, ask the RTD lawyers, that “cab drivers are liable for criminal penalty for refusing to buy cabs which can transport persons in wheelchairs? What about persons in iron lungs or on other life support systems? Does this mean that a private automobile has to be wheelchair accessible?” The act, they contend, is sweeping in nature and poses an “impossible conundrum… to an organization or a person who wishes not to violate its provisions on pain of criminal sanctions.” Those who violate the act are guilty of a misdemeanor and are subject to a maximum sentence of a $100 fine and 60 days in county jail. In January 1982, seven wheelchair-bound individuals and the Atlantis Community for the disabled accused the district in a lawsuit filed in Denver District Court of violating both the Colorado Handicapped Act and a settlement reached in federal court several years ago. Basically they contended that in the federal settlement RTD agreed that all new buses would have wheelchair-lift equipment. Although many of the new buses are accessible to people in wheelchairs, they contend that RTD has decided against making 89 new buses, due for delivery in June, accessible to the handicapped. By denying such access, says the lawsuit, RTD has breached both the terms of the federal settlement and the duties it owes the handicapped under the Colorado - ADAPT (246)
THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER Wednesday, May 21, 1986 [This article continues in ADAPT 245, but the entire text is included here for easier reading.] [Headline] Handicapped bus protests to continue [Subheading] Judge offers three protesters choice of jail or leaving city BY DAVID WELLS and JAMES F. McCARTY The Cincinnati Enquirer and ENQUIRER WIRE SERVICES The issue of handicapped people and their accessibility to mass transit reached a peak Tuesday locally and nationally, sparking protests that were expected to go on today. In Cincinnati, a judge ordered three handicapped protesters who had been arrested to leave the city or go to jail. One of the men, a native Cincinnatian, chose to ignore the edict, and his bail of $3,000 was revoked late Tuesday. In Washington, D.C., the Department of Transportation issued long-awaited criteria for making the nation's public transportation systems more accessible to 20 million handicapped people. Neither decision was well received by the handicapped community. The Rev. Wade Blank of ADAPT (American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation) said late Tuesday that a dozen or more of its members were planning an act of civil disobedience in Cincinnati today that he expected would get them all arrested. “We decided that to leave Cincinnati under the present atmosphere of basic human rights violations, would be to ignore our moral obligations," Blank said. George Cooper, who was arrested Monday said, “I thought my hometown of Dallas was conservative, but Cincinnati is more conservative." Cooper arrested Monday with two other members of ADAPT on charges of disorderly conduct during a demonstration at Government Square. Hamilton County Municipal Judge David Albanese imposed the sentence on the the ADAPT protesters. Late Tuesday, police spotted ADAPT member Mike Auburger, a former Cincinnatian who lives in Denver, driving a car through the -- city—an apparent violation of Albanese's order to leave the city. Cooper and Robert Kafka, Austin, Texas, were arrested after they crawled up the steps of a Queen City Metro bus, paid their fares and demanded the right to ride. Auburger was arrested when he tried to grab a wheel of the same bus as it pulled away from the stop. Metro's Assistant General Manager Murray Bond said disabled persons were not permitted on regular coaches because the company does not think it is safe. Metro provides wheelchair lifts on Special Access buses. but Bond said the cost of installing wheelchair lifts on regular buses would be prohibitive. Defense attorney Joanie Wilkens said after Tuesday’s hearing that she considered Albanese's order unusual but that ADAPT did not have the time or resources to fight it in court. ADAPT members were in Cincinnati to protest policies of Queen City Metro and the American Public Transit Association, which is having a convention at the Westin Hotel. In Washington, DOT's issuance of a final regulation requiring transit systems to provide reasonable alternative transportation for the handicapped contained no surprises. Many transit systems have been moving for several years toward providing alternatives such as van service or a taxi voucher system for handicapped passengers. But ADAPT and other national disability rights groups, dismayed by the new rule, almost immediately filed federal lawsuits against DOT to block the move. Handicapped representatives said the new rule fell far short of carrying out the law. A federal court in 1981 ruled that a federal requirement that all transit systems be accessible to the handicapped was too much of a financial burden. It told the Urban Mass Transportation Administration to develop new requirements that would assure that the handicapped are provided service. Under the final rule announced Tuesday, a transit authority must establish some alternative services for the handicapped if the regular bus or rail service can not be made accessible. Other members of ADAPT continued to picket in their wheelchairs in front of the Westin Hotel on Tuesday. The group suspended a wheelchair from a wooden cross. It symbolizes how the disabled are being crucified," said Bill Bolte, who helped to hoist the chair. PHOTO -- The Cincinnati Enquirer/Fred Strau: Two protesters hang a wheelchair on a large wooden cross. One man in a cowboy hat and plaid shirt (Joe Carle) steadies the cross and the chair from below, while a second man (Jim Parker) stands and pulls the manual wheelchair higher. Behind them several other protesters (including Joanne ____) watch and stand by extensive police barricades in front of the APTA convention hotel. Caption reads: Joe Carle, left, and Jim Parker chain a wheelchair to a cross Tuesday outside the Westin Hotel. The two were among several members of the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit demonstrating against City Metro and the American Public Transit Association which is meeting at the Westin. - ADAPT (285)
The Detroit News, Section B Metro/ Wednesday, Oct. 8, 1986 pp. 1b and 6b News Focus: HANDICAPPED ACCESS PHOTO News Photo by Howard Kaplan: Three dark uniformed officers encircle the back of an older, thin man in a an old style manual wheelchair (Frank McComb). The officer on the left looks frustrated but determined, the one in the middle looks somewhat worried and the one on right is bending forward as if trying to speak to Frank. Frank looks freaked out. He is wearing a button down shirt and jacket with an ADAPT button. Caption reads: Handicapped protester arrested at Federal Building in downtown Detroit. There are two articles side by side. [These articles both are continued on ADAPT 275, but the entire text of both has been included here for easier reading.] Title of first article: 2nd day of protest brings 37 arrests By Louis Mieczko and David Grant, News Staff Writers A group of jailed wheelchair-bound protesters found themselves confronted Tuesday night with the kind of access problems they've been protesting all week. Thirteen protesters spent the night in a gym at Detroit Police Headquarters after the Wayne County sheriff's department refused to admit them to the county jail. A spokeswoman for the sheriff's department said the protesters weren’t accepted at the jail because over-crowding forced the county on Friday to stop incarcerating people accused of misdemeanors. MEANWHILE, UP to 60 people -- most in wheelchairs — descended on the area around Police Headquarters to protest the jailings. They wheeled slowly along the sidewalks around the building, chanting, “Let our people go" and vowed to spend the night. About 20 police officers stood near the protesters but did not intervene. The 13 protesters were among 37 people arrested Tuesday, after they blocked one of two entrances to the McNamara federal office building in downtown Detroit. Of the 37 people arrested, 31 were in wheelchairs. Police said the 13 jailed protesters were being held in lieu of $1,000 cash bail each. The rest of the protesters were released on $100 [personal bond]. BAIL WAS set at $1,000 for the 13, a police spokesman said, because their arrests Tuesday violated the conditions of their release Monday on $100 personal bond after a similar protest. They had been ordered to avoid further arrest until a court appearance set for Oct. 24, police said. Their incarceration posed special problems for police. The protesters were being held in a gym at Police Headquarters, which has barred windows and doors and is occasionally used to hold prisoners temporarily when processing of prisoners is backed up at the jail, police said. The bathrooms in the gym are not equipped for the handicapped and guards were carrying the protesters in the toilets, police said. The protesters were arrested early in the afternoon. By the time they had been processed and carried into the gym by police, the cafeteria at the Wayne County Jail had closed, police said. Officers at Police Headquarters, who declined to be named and who wouldn't provide details, said they secured from the county jail meals of roast beef and pot roast with lettuce, salads, ice cream, milk and juice. The protesters ate about 8:30 p.m. Title of second article: Costly bus lifts are key to dispute By Louis Mieczko, News Staff Writer It costs an estimated $20,000 to install wheelchair lifts on a typical city bus, and sometimes they don't work. That's the crux of a dispute between transit agencies across the country handicapped groups protesting the lack of access to public buses and rail cars. Americans [sic] Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation (ADAPT) wants every bus and rail car in the county available to wheelchair-bound people, a move which transit officials say would bankrupt most agencies. HANDICAPPED ADAPT demonstrators clashed this week with the American Public Transit Association (APTA), which is holding its annual convention in Detroit. It was the fourth such confrontation in as many years tied to the APTA conventions. Dozens of protesters have been arrested since Sunday for interfering with bus traffic and blocking entry to the McNamara Building as they sought to meet with staff members of U.S. Senators Carl Levin and Donald Riegle Jr. ADAPT has strongly criticized Detroit's Department of Transportation (D-DOT), which serves the city, and praised the suburban Southeastern Michigan Transportation Authority (SEMTA). “We fought for five years in Denver to get wheelchair lifts on all city buses there, and when we won in Denver, we went national," said Wade Blank, a Presbyterian minister whose 15-year-old daughter is confined to a wheelchair. THE PROTEST group, which Blank helped start, is upset with APTA for opposing its goal of wheelchair lifts on all buses. Five years ago, APTA won a lawsuit knocking down a requirement that the devices be installed on buses purchased with federal funds. Jack R. Gilstrap, APTA executive vice-president, called that too costly. “In Washington, D.C., $60 million was spent to provide elevators for the ‘subway stations, but only 36 handicapped people use those elevators on a given day," said Gilstrap. “We would much rather let each transit authority develop dial-a-ride and other more cost-effective services.” Gilstrap said it costs an average of $20,000 a bus to add wheelchair lifts, which often are unreliable. "THEY’VE NEVER given the wheelchair lift system a chance to work," said Frank A. Clark, chairman of the Detroit-based Coalition for the Human Rights of the Handicapped. “How much does it cost to keep these people at home or in a nursing facility." A 10 year old Michigan law, one of the most stringent in the United States, requires that all new buses bought with state funds have wheelchair lifts. California is the only other state with such a requirement. According to the Michigan Department of Transportation, 1,186 of the 2,127 publicly owned buses in the state have wheelchair lifts. Detroit recently bought 100 buses, but equipped only 20 with wheelchair lifts. The city did not have to follow the state law because it used city funds. ONLY 196 of the city's 606 buses — about 32 percent —— have the wheelchair equipment. By comparison, 140 of SEMTA’s 202 buses — more than 69 percent — are equipped with the lifts. And 440 of Denver's 760 buses — 58 percent — have the lifts. Denver's policy is to equip all new buses with the lifts: and the handicapped groups say they consider Denver's system a model that should be adopted by others. Clark complained that the Detroit lifts often don't work. “They don't maintain them at all," Clark said. “We'll be going into federal court soon to complain about the situation." CLARK’S GROUP has a five-year-old lawsuit pending before Federal District Judge Richard Suhrheinrich, charging Detroit with violating U.S. handicap access laws for mass transit, public buildings and walkways. The law requires that public property be accessible to the handicapped. Clark said members of his group monitor Detroit buses for operating lifts by attempting to board them while in wheelchairs. He said the group annually checks five routes Gratiot, Woodward, Grand River, Crosstown and East Warren — designated by D-DOT for handicapped access. "But even on those routes," Clark said, "we can't find any that work." By contrast," he said, "SEMTA maintains its lift equipment. D-DOT officials could not be reached for comment. Mayor Coleman A. Young’s press secretary, Robert Berg, referred questions on Detroit's recent bus purchase in state officials. NEIL LINCOLN, a spokesman for the Denver system, said it has come a long way quickly. “The lifts still break down," he added, “but not nearly as often." However, some cities like Chicago and Cleveland have not bought any wheelchair lifts because of the cost and maintenance problems. Spokesmen for those cities said they prefer to develop dial-a-ride and van service for the handicapped. Detroit has no dial-a-ride or van service. NEWS GRAPHIC: Handicapped accessible buses Here's a look at the number of buses that are handicap accessible and average number of daily riders on 6 transit systems: Wheelchair Lifts: Baltimore has 100. Chicago has 0, Cleveland has 0. Denver has 440, Detroit has 196, SEMTA has 140. Total Buses: Baltimore has 900, Chicago has 2,275, Cleveland has 656, Denver has 760, Detroit has 603, SEMTA has 203. Daily Riders: Baltimore has 240,000, Chicago has 1.6 million, Cleveland has 263,400, Denver has 160,000, Detroit has 180,000, SEMTA has 203,000. (59 small vans for handicapped, all wheelchair accessible.) end of news graphic. PHOTO: News Photo by W. Lynn Owens: A man in a jean jacket and hoodie, with bushy dark hair and a beard stands, back to the camera, by the door of a Denver Transit bus. On the steps at the doorway a thin young person is sitting, hands raised to grab on, as this person tries to lift themselves backward up and onto the bus. On the curb in front of these two people sits an empty manual wheelchair. Inside the bus you can see the silhouette of the bus driver sitting in the drivers seat. - ADAPT (297)
THE HANDICAPPED COLORADAN Vol. 9, No. 2, Boulder, Colorado, September 1986 PHOTO: Head and shoulders of a man (Wade Blank) with long straight hair parted in the middle, and wire-rimmed round dark glasses. He is wearing a vest over a button down shirt and undershirt and he is smiling. Caption reads: Wade Blank. Some say he wants another Kent State. Title: Rosa Parks leads Detroit protest march Famous black activist ignores plea from Coleman Young to stay out The faces and forms in the column of marchers behind her were a little different today from those she led 30 years ago, but the woman at the head of the march hasn't changed much. Rosa Parks is 74 now and slowing down a little, but she still radiates the same spirit that helped ignite the black civil rights movement in 1956 when she refused to give up her seat to a white man and move to the back of a Montgomery, Ala., bus. The police put her behind bars that day but within hours a local Baptist minister named Martin Luther King, ]r., orchestrated a bus boycott that was to be the first act of organized protest that would bring an end to segregation in less than 10 years. On Sunday, Oct. 5, 1986, the issue was once again segregation and public buses, but this time there were only a handful of black faces among the marchers who took to the streets of Detroit. Yet it was just as easy today as it was in 1956 to identify what made these protestors different from other people. They were in wheelchairs. Rolling under the banner of the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT), they had come to Detroit to picket their old nemesis, the American Public Transit Association (APTA), which was holding its annual national convention ln Detroit. APTA represents most of the nation's public transit systems and has steadfastly refused to support—or even to-vote on—a proposal to require transit systems to add wheelchair lifts to buses. The state of Michigan requires that all transit companies receiving state funds be wheelchair accessible, but the city of Detroit has avoided that requirement by refusing to accept any financial assistance. Buses in the largely white suburbs have lifts, but a wheelchair passenger who wants to continue a trip into Detroit is out of luck. Detroit mayor Colernan Young, himself a black who played a prominent role in the civil rights movement in the 1960s, does not support accessibility for disabled persons and was scheduled to address the APTA convention along with Ed Bradley, also a black and a CBS newsman and regular on "60 Minutes.” Both Young and Bradley reportedly pleaded with Parks not to participate in the march on the APTA convention, but after a late night meeting with staff and advisors, Parks said she would not renege on her commitment. As The Handicapped Coloradan " was going to press, it was reported that Young was going to ask the Detroit city council to rescind ADAPT's parade permit. An ADAPT spokesperson said he expected some 150 ADAPT members from across the country to be joined by at least another 100 protestors in making the march on the Westin Hotel Renaissance Center. "l think we're on the brink of breaking this thing wide open,” said Wade Blank of Denver, who helped form ADAPT. Blank said he was hoping Parks‘ participation would help people to understand that disabled people look upon accessibility as a civil right. APTA, on the other hand, says it's a question of practicality and finances and so should be left to the discretion of the local transit provider. Geographical conditions have to be taken into consideration because lifts are difficult to operate in snow and on curved roads; according to Albert Engeiken, APTA's deputy executive director. Blank scoffs at that position and suggests that lift technology has reached a point where they can be operated in all kinds of climatic extremes, if the transit provider is truly committed to accessibliity. Many transit systems did order lift-equipped buses in the late 1970s when the Carter administration's Department of Transportation mandated accessibility. APTA, which acts as a lobbying and policy-making group for some 300 separate transit districts, filed a lawsuit that eventually led to a reversal of that decision. In Denver, the Regional Transportation District (RTD) announced that it was scrapping its plans for providing mainline accessible service on the basis of that ruling and quickly found itself battling wheelchair protestors in the streets. In falling snow and freezing temperatures, protestors blocked buses and chained themselves to railings outside the RTD offices untll the courts interceded. RTD was ordered to provide some accessible service, but the board of directors continued to resist the Idea. However, ln 1983 the appointed RTD board was replaced by an elected body and quickly voted to commit Denver to accessibility. That same year, APTA brought its national convention to Denver. Disabled individuals and groups who had fought for lifts in the streets of Denver united under the ADAPT banner and, with the support of Mayor Federico Pena, threw up pickets around the convention hotel and arranged to present its demand for accessibility to the convention. No vote was taken and the issue was not brought before national conventions held ln Washington, D.C., in 1984 or in Los Angeles in 1985. ln both cities ADAPT members defied police and blocked buses. A handful were arrested in Washington and a couple of dozen in Los Angeles. ADAPT didn't limit itself to picketing just APTA’s national convention but dogged the organization across the country, sending pickets to various regional conventions, including San Antonio and Cincinnati (see related story). Buses were blocked and more demonstrators went to jail. In some cases, confrontations with local police turned ugly. That has led some disabled groups to break away from ADAPT and Blank’s leadership. Denver's Holistic Approaches to Independent Living (HAIL, Inc.) and its executive director Theresa Preda went to Detroit but refused to participate in some of ADAPT’s actions. "They told me they were afraid I wasn't going to be satisfied until there was blood in the street, until someone in a wheelchair got killed,” Blank said. “They told me I was trying for another Kent State." Blank, who founded the Atlantis Community which, like HAIL, fosters independent living, was a campus minister at Kent State University when national guardsmen fired on student demonstrators during a Vietnam war protest. Four students were killed. Blank denied that he had any such intention, but added that ADAPT has no intention of giving up civil disobedience. “It’s the most effective weapon we've got," he said. Blank said, ADAPT would probably stop buses in Detroit. "They just received 100 new buses," he said. "Without lifts, of course." Blank said he would not be surprised if protestors were to be arrested. Ironically, on the eve of the march the Wayne County jail was filled to capacity (1700) and prisoners were being turned away. - ADAPT (331)
The Fulcrum: Handicappers Making a Difference The newsletter produced by handicappers for handicappers in Michigan [This story continues on ADAPT 330 but the text is included here in it's entirety for easier reading.] PHOTO: A wide wet city street with about seven people in wheelchairs and scooters sitting in the middle of it. Four men, possibly reporters, stand in front of them and behind them is a city bus and some lines of cars. On one side of the street is another city bus with five other people in wheelchairs sitting by it. Picture Caption: Protesting the overturned DDOT decision, this human barricade blocked traffic in downtown Detroit. [Headline] Demonstrators ride paddy wagon, not buses By Yvonne Duffy When Mike Gambatto retired from the Detroit Police Department after an on-the-job injury, he probably never thought that one day he would be arrested for obstructing traffic on a public street. He felt so strongly about the importance of Detroit buses being accessible to persons with disabilities, however, that on the morning of November 23 he drove from Lansing to downtown Detroit to join other demonstrators, most of whom were users of wheelchairs or three-wheelers. In 1987, Gambatto was one of the plaintiffs in a class action suit in which the Wayne County Circuit Court ordered the Detroit Department of Transportation (DDOT) to purchase and maintain lifts on their buses and awarded $2.5 million in damages to the more than 1,110 people eventually included in the suit. This protest occurred because this October the MI Court of Appeals overturned the earlier decision, ruling in favor of DDOT and eliminating the monetary damages. The group of about twenty-five huddled at the intersection of Woodward and East Jefferson in hooded jackets, mufflers, mitts, and occasional afghans under a sullen grey sky punctuated by freezing rain and snow flurries. As the traffic light turned red, Gambatto and nine other chair and cart users rolled onto the road to arrange themselves so that when the light changed, traffic was completely blocked on the busy downtown street. Horns honked, and a few drivers got out of their vehicles. One driver, upon learning that the protestors were demonstrating for their right to use the city buses like everyone else, exclaimed, “I’m with you!” raising his hand in the victory sign as he returned to his car. The police were ready. Within minutes, the sergeant in charge approached Frank Clark, a post-polio retiree with a long history of activism to make Detroit more accessible, and informed him that if the group did not return to the curb they would be arrested. When they refused, the paddy wagon, which had no lift, was brought in, and officers began hoisting up the chair users. The chair of one tipped perilously to one side as he was loaded into the van. Gambatto asked to be lifted in separately from his three-wheeler, which sometimes comes apart when lifted. An assisting officer asked if Gambatto had been injured in the line of duty. The fourteen-year veteran of the force explained that a nerve in his neck had been injured when he had attempted to break through a chained door to apprehend a man who had just stabbed a little girl, resulting in a multiple sclerosis-like condition. The officer, visibly moved, replied, “I never actually met a policeman that was hurt on the job before. This hurts- it hits home.” Gambatto was elated about his participation on the demonstration. “I felt like we were doing something worthwhile out there,” he said. “We weren’t breaking a law just to break a law. We were making a point that really needed to be made- that the buses are inaccessible in the City of Detroit.” As mobility Coordinator at Michigan State University’s Program for Handicapper Students, he has become even more keenly aware of the financial and social costs of failing to make public transportation to accessible. “Instead of buying [unreadable], we, as a society, are paying for people to stay home- often for their whole lives. We waste human minds because we’re too cheap to buy wheelchair lifts.” The demonstrators were driven a few blocks to police headquarters where they were given the option of receiving tickets. During the two hours it took for processing, they were held in an unheated storeroom off the garage. There were no accessible restrooms. Nevertheless, there was general agreement among the demonstrators that the Detroit police displayed exemplary sensitivity and courtesy during the arrest and booking. “They were nice to the point of graciousness,” said Verna Spayth of Ann Arbor, an organizer of the action. According to Spayth, the police sergeant, whose late brother had been a polio quad, seemed aware that by his decision to arrest, he rescued them from the freezing rain and, at the same time, attracted attention to their protest by making it a newsworthy event. Ironically, George Harrison, a Detroit resident for 25 years and a wheelchair user for the last six, almost never made it to the protest because the bus driver did not know how to operate the lift. He was fortunate that a more knowledgeable bus driver riding to work came to his rescue. When Roger McCarville of Ortonville, whose both legs were amputated, heard about Harrison’s experience, he “knew he was in the right place.” Citing accessible public transportation as essential for a quality life, McCarville, who owns a company, Handicap Transportation, which carries people with disabilities to non-emergency medical appointments, says, “Lives go beyond medical. There’s a whole social aspect out there, and there’s no service available.” Many who live outside the metropolitan area put themselves on the line to demonstrate unity with their brothers and sisters with disabilities even though they personally did not need the service. For Spayth, Advocacy Coordinator at the Ann Arbor Center for Independent Living, who, last fall, chained herself with several other to buses in downtown Detroit but was not arrested, every opportunity to forge a sense of community is precious. She says, “Whether you get arrested or not, once you’ve chained yourself together with other people with disabilities, it’s totally impossible to look at those people again as separate individuals. Even without words, a bond is created there.” Scott Heinzman of Livonia, adds, “Even though I’m not expecting anything, there could be a time when I might need the help of people in other communities to bring attention to an issue.” For Heinzman, participating in the protest was important for other reasons. Sharing the view that Detroit has been hurt by the mass exodus to the suburbs, he feels that, as a suburban resident, he wants to give something back to the city. “People are people everywhere,” he says, “and if there are problems, problems can be solved.” Heinzman serves on the Advisory Council of the Great Lakes Center for Independent Living, whose offices are in Detroit. A 28-year-old quad, he is also bringing much-needed exposure of children to people with disabilities, through his activity with the Boy Scouts and his local Parent Teacher Organization. Ray Creech, a Canton resident, wanted to “show support for the people in Detroit who really need it [accessible transportation].” Occasionally, when he visits Trapper’s Alley or Greektown, he has tried to use the buses with mixed success. Spayth vocalizes a feeling shared by many in the disability movement: “The easy answer is that when we fight for disability rights anywhere, we fight for them everywhere, but, for me, it goes deeper than that. Every once in awhile, I feel the need to express my anger against my oppressors. What happens next in the fight to make DDOT buses reliably accessible and restore the monetary damages awarded by the lower court three years ago? The next step in the judicial process, according to Justin Ravitz, attorney for the plaintiffs, is an appeal to the Michigan Supreme Court. If the justices “have any sensitivity or allegiance to the law, they will surely hear our case,” he says. This process could take months or even years, however. Meanwhile, Detroiters with disabilities want to ride. Until they achieve that goal, Ray Creech vows, “We’ll just keep coming back!” PHOTO: Five uniformed police officers stand around a single man in a wheelchair. One of them has his head down and is touching the arm of the guy in the wheelchair. Caption reads: Police escort demonstrator to paddy wagon. - ADAPT (352)
Passenger Transport 4/3/98? At San Francisco Meeting Agreement Reached in Suit By Disabled over Access San Francisco, Calif.- A settlement agreement of a class action suit brought by two individuals with disabilities against the Hilton Hotels Corporation, APTA, and Executive Vice President Jack Gilstrap was reached recently. The February 1988 suit stemmed from a protest by persons with disabilities at the San Francisco Hilton Hotel during APTA’s 1987 Annual Meeting. “We are pleased that this litigation is being settled and that we can, hopefully, put it behind us and move forward,” said Mr. Gilstrap. He emphasized that the settlement agreement stipulates that APTA entered into this agreement without admitting any liability in connection with the incident. The plaintiffs who brought the suit in the California Superior Court claimed that their right of access to the San Francisco Hotel was violated during a Sept. 27, 1987, meeting and protest at the hotel. Persons with disabilities had been invited to attend a meeting with APTA that morning, but an accessible hotel entrance was temporarily closed. The protesters sued under California law that guarantees full access for individuals with disabilities. The Sept. 27 incident came during a week when disabled activists held a tumultuous demonstration at San Francisco city hall and also blocked operation of the city’s historic cable car system. The settlement, reached on March 3 and preliminary approved by the court, provides monetary damages to disabled individuals who feel they were denied access to the hotel. The preliminary court approval clears the way for announcement of the settlement in publications distributed throughout the disabled community. Individuals who were invited to the Sept. 27 meeting and were denied access through the temporarily closed entrance are entitled to a minimum of $1,250. Persons who sought access or would have sought access to the hotel but for the temporary closure will have an opportunity to identify themselves and file proofs of claim for damages of up to $250. The damages will be paid out of a settlement fund established by Hilton Hotels and APTA amounting to $100,000. A hearing will be held this June for a final determination by the court concerning the fairness of the settlement. - ADAPT (357)
Disabled Activists Blockade Transit Expo By Jack Fletcher Frontline, October 12, 1987 PHOTO by Frontline: In a medium close up, man and a woman in wheelchairs (Bob Kafka and Diane Coleman), sit side by side in a downtown street and tall buildings in the background. Both wear the ADAPT T-shirt with the no-steps logo, Diane has on a white jacket. Bob is speaking and has his hand over Diane's, which is on her joy stick. Behind her head is a poster, partly blocked from view, that reads "We the People..." There is no caption. San Francisco Hundreds of disabled activists, demanding accessible transit, dramatically confronted “the world’s largest transit exposition” here September 27-30 as they blockaded streets, chained themselves to cable cars, and generally besieged the 15,000 mass transit officials and manufacturers’ representatives at the American Public Transit Association (APTA) Expo ’87. Over 100 protesters were arrested as they pressed APTA to approve a resolution by the September Alliance for Affordable Transit (SAAT) calling for the right of the disabled and elderly to access public transit. SAAT organizer Marilyn Golden called the APTA protests “the largest in disability rights history.” The disabled community has fought against APTA since 1979 when APTA brought a lawsuit that succeeded in overturning a federal regulation requiring that all transit vehicles be accessible to the disabled. Since 1983 the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT) has organized demonstrations at APTA conventions in Cincinnati, Detroit, Phoenix, New York, and Washington, D. C. to urge a policy change. Until this year when they scheduled two workshops on the issue, APTA has been unwilling to even meet with protestors. Mark Johnson, a demonstrator from Georgia, drew the parallel between these protests and the civil rights movement saying, “There was something wrong when Black people weren’t allowed to sit in the front of the bus, and there’s something wrong when we can’t even go on the bus.” APTA claims that accessibility would cost $15 billion and would bankrupt the nation’s transit districts; they propose instead a system of “paratransit” which would theoretically provide disabled people with flexible door-to-door service but in fact translates into long waiting lists and call-ahead requirements, weekday-only buses and restricted ride purposes. SAAT counters that APTA’s $15 billion figure includes completely rebuilding subways in New York, Chicago and other cities, while the disabled community’s actual demand does not include rebuilding rail systems or even retrofitting existing vehicles, but only that new buses include wheelchair lifts. Also, while arguing that paratransit may be a useful supplement to public transit, Susan Schapiro of SAAT criticized existing paratransit systems as designed with a view of the disabled as “pathetic people in nursing homes going to see the doctor twice a month . . . . It all boils down to discrimination and the belief that these aren’t really people. The APTA delegates could not miss the powerful statement made by the tenacious lines of wheelchair bound demonstrators who spanned several generations in age, were multi-racial in composition, and came from every corner of the U.S. – including eight from Alaska. As demonstrators were being arrested they drove home the irony of being taken away in a lift-equipped paddy wagons chanting, “They can take us to jail but not to work.”