Six days in San Francisco

by Laura Hershey, Special Report to The Handicapped Coloradan

What ADAPT has got, the thing that makes you difierent from other `groups`, is you realize that there's a war going on-—that people are dying, and locked up, and being tortured.
—Johnny Creschendo, British musician, poet, & disability-rights activist

The peaceable warriors of ADAPT took it to the streets of San Francisco this fall, protesting policies and institutions that limit freedom for people who are older or disabled. On Saturday, October 17, 300 members of the American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today (ADAPT) checked into the Ramada

Hotel Civic Center on Market Street. Five days and 162 arrests later, the group left town, having raised the stakes once again in the battle against compulsory nursing home placement.

ADAPT is demanding the creation of a national system of attendant services, to be available to anyone needing assistance to live independently, regardless of age, diagnosis, or geographical location. The funds for such a program, according to ADAPT, should come from diverting 25 percent of the federal money currently spent on institutionalizing people in nursing homes. This year, the federal nursing home budget is around $28 billion; ADAPT wants $7 billion transferred to in-home attendant services.

This plan is being opposed by nursing home owners, and lacks the support of the federal government. Both came under attack by ADAPT, as did the


Cops tug at demonstrator at Federal Center
Mike Auberger, one ofthe founders of ADAPT, meets up with San Francisco police

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Laura Hershey, The Handicapped Coloradan

Created on

Dé Máirt 16 Iúil 2013

Posted on

Dé Máirt 10 Meán Fómhair 2019

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• San Francisco, fall 1992

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