Incitement
Incitement
Incitement

Volume 18 No 2
A Publication of ADAPT
Summer 2002

[headline] What is a Homeland Without a Home?
[Subheading] ADAPT DC Action: Let Freedom Ring

[Subheading] Another Mother for Freedom

Mothers Day 2002 was the kick off for the Spring ADAPT action in DC With 75% of those in nursing homes being women, and the majority of those who provide long-term services and supports being women this seemed only appropriate. So, on this beautiful spring day, we
took off on the first of many long marches and brought the issue to the doorstep of the White House and to the wife and mother of the President of the United States. ADAPT delivered a giant five foot by eight foot mothers day card to First Lady Laura Bush and to Barbara Bush, mother of the current president and First Lady for the passage of


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[text resumes] the Americans with Disabilities Act. Both were asked to give American women the ?Gift of Freedom" by supporting Medicaid reform and the Medicaid Community-based Attendant Services and Supports Act (MiCASSA). The crowd included mothers, children and supporters who all believe our national long term care system needs massive reform to end the bias that pushes so many women (and men) into nursing homes and other institutions after a life-time of supporting others. After the presentation of the card, the crowd sang two versions of Mommas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up and Put You in A Nursing Home, (takeoffs on Willie Nelson's famous Mommas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Cowboys song. see page 5)

Meanwhile, in Houston, where Barbara Bush now lives, disability advocates including members of Houston ADAPT, the Houston Center for Independent Living and the Center on Women and Disabilities made a similar presentation. Children of women with disabilities spoke out against locking up their moms, urged all Americans to end this terrible national policy, and urged swift passage of MiCASSA.

[Subheading] Follow the Money

Day two ADAPT took to heart the old political saying ?follow the money." And where do all the bucks stop in DC? What is one of the biggest barriers to implementation of Olmstead, MiCASSA and similar efforts? The Office of Management and Budget, OMB. For years their name has been invoked in hushed tones, like the evil sorcerer Voldemort in Harry Potter, and for years OMB has quietly but firmly stepped on initiative after initiative to Free Our People. So ADAPT took to the streets around their building and closed down Pennsylvania Avenue, 17th Street and H Street, as well as blocking their front doors. And many DC power movers and shakers were startled to find that, just like a nursing home, you could not get out.

Terrible storms threatened, the skies

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blackened, clouds swirled and wind gusted. But ADAPT's troops stood firm, holding the doors and intersections until the giant was forced to react. Emissaries from the White House finally came out and tried to distract the ADAPT leadership with offers of discus-sions of the issues, in order to better under-stand what has been explained for over a decade now. At 4:00 it was absolutely impossible to arrange a meeting with Mitchell Daniels, Jr., the Director of OMB, and White House staff left the negotiations .... But ADAPT held firm. 1' I think the White House and the police really began to realize how important our freedom is to us," said Steve Verriden, ADAPT Wisconsin State Organizer. ?When it started to rain, they were surprised that no one made any move to leave. We all just pulled on rain ponchos, shared umbrellas, taped plastic over the electric controls on our wheelchairs, and settled in for however long it was going take to get the meeting. We would have been arrested or slept there if need be." At 4:45 the impossible became possible: we had a written commitment for the meeting.

[subheading] Jobs for Justice?

When looking at why the institutional bias remains so strong, there is one group of players that, perhaps most of all, should know better but remains a problem, year after year the unions. Jobs at any cost, lives for a pay-check, are the cynical view of the situation of union jobs in the long-term care arena. While progressives write summarily about the triad pushing for reform (families, workers and people with disabilities) there is a definite hierarchy to the picture, and guess who is on the bottom. Reform rarely means more than better wages for the institutional workers and ra break" for the family; guess who is the burden to all. Laguna Honda was a recent lesson in this regard with workers organizing to rebuild that monstrosity, stabbing the disability community in the back after getting dis-ability support for increased wages, and even within a single union $25 a hour in the institution, $10 or less in the community. But this story has been told again and again, at almost every state institution slated for downsizing or closure. AFSCME has even been rumored to fund the Voice of the Retarded from time to time.

ADAPT shares the unions' goal of a living wage for the workers who assist us," said Bob Kafka, National ADAPT Organizer from Texas. That only increases the chances we will get better care from more qualified assistants, who will remain in their jobs over time. What we will not accept, though, is holding people with

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disabilities hostage in nursing homes and institutions to protect jobs for unionized employees. ADAPT's strong message to union officials has been heard, and now we can work on solutions to our mutual problems."

ADAPT took a three way approach. One group headed to the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which organizes nursing home, ?home care" and some state institutional workers One group went to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), which organizes state institutional workers. The third group hit the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO). Marching through the streets we took a route that let us split off at the last minute, since by this time the police were escorting us where ever we went Each group entered the lobby of their designated building and demanded a meeting with their heads to discuss support for MiC-ASSA In a relatively short time all three groups got a written commitment for meetings within 60 days. Gerald W. McEntee, President of AFSCME, and who also serves on the Executive Council of the AFL-CIO, committed to personally arrange a meeting with ADAPT representatives, himself, John J. Sweeney, President of the AFL-CIO, and Andrew Stern, International President of the SEIU.

In fact, by the end of May SEIU had written and committed to supporting MiCASSA.

[Subheading] A National Call for MiCASSA

ADAPT's week in DC ended with a MiCASSA event held on Capitol Hill and hosted by MiCASSA's cosponsors and ably emceed by NCIL's Courtland Townes. 500 supporters crammed into the spacious
meeting room in the Rayburn building to hear the cosponsors and supporter groups speak on behalf of the bills HR 3612 and S 1298. Yet despite the huge room, so many were there that a sound system was set up for those who flowed over into the halls of the Senate office building. What made the event especially momentous was that 81 sites across the nation were hooked up by telephone so over 3,000 people participated From New Hampshire to California, from Florida to Washington state, from Montana to Texas, advocates were in-volved and empowered to recommit to the fight to FREE OUR PEOPLE!

Speakers from Congress included original cosponsors of S.1298, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA); cosponsors of H.R. 3612, Rep Danny Davis (D-IL), and Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL), as well as Rep. Dennis Moore (D-KS) and Rep. Joseph Hoeffel (D-PA) Disability organization and grassroots participants included Barbara Toomer, ADAPT Utah State Organizer; Mike Oxford, President of the National Council for Independent Living (NCIL); Howard Bedlin of the National Council on Aging (NCOA); Marty Ford of the Arc representing the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities (CCD), nursing home escapee Rick James of Denver ADAPT; Jim Ward of ADA Watch; Marcie Roth, Executive Director of the National Spinal Cord Injury Association (NSCIA); Becky Ogle and Brian Rasmussen of United Cerebral Palsy (UCP); institution escapee Marie Anderson of Knoxville Tennessee ADAPT; Maureen McCloskey of Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA); Andy Imparato, Executive Director of the American Association of Persons with Disabilities (AAPD); and nursing home escapee Shelly Perrin of Rochester, New York ADAPT.

After the event, people broke into state teams and visited the Congress people and Senators to pass the word of MiCASSA and to ask for their cosponsorship of the House or Senate version of the bill, and eight more House members signed on with several others considering it!

Though the War on Terrorism and Homeland defense are eclipsing almost every item of domestic policy including our "homeland defense" of MiCASSA, and may delay passage of this bill until next session, these events greatly strengthened the foundation for MiCASSA for the next session. So even if the bill needs to be reintroduced, the momentum for passage is building.

photos by Tim Wheat
[next article/poem/song]
[Headline] Mommas Don't Let Your Babies Put You in a Nursing Home
by Mike Oxford

Mommas, don't let your babies
put you in a nursing home
With strangers alone,
And you're never at home,
Not with the ones that you love...

Mommas, don't let you're babies
put you in a nursing home
Where dignity's blown,
And the bed's not your own,
Stranger no place to call home...

Mommas, don't let your babies
put you in a nursing home
With strangers alone,
And you're never at home,
Not with the ones that you love...

Mama's there's blue sky, there's rain
There's joy and there's pain
Live where you want to
Stay where you will
Support MiCASSA, our bill!

[third article/song/poem]

[headline] Mommas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up And Put You in a Nursing Home!
by Anita Cameron

Mommas, when you get old, your kids you know, they start to worry,

About how you're gonna get along in this world
of stress, strife and hurry

So, they'll take you to a place with a cute name where they think you'll be safe

Never knowing your golden years

Will be filled with many tears, Living with strangers and strange smells all day.

Refrain: Mommas, don't let your babies grow up And put you in a nursing home.

'Cause a nursing home ain't your home,

And you'll be all forlorn,

Wondering why you are living this way.

Mommas, don't let your babies grow up
and put you in a nursing home

'Cause even with money, it ain't peaches and honey,

Livin' without respect or dignity each day.

Mommas, all over America from Barbara to the woman who's out on the street

There's a thing called MiCASSA that'll give you a choice where you wanna be.

You can stay in your own home, and have all the help that you need to be happy and free

So come lift up your voice

And speak out for real choice

And support MiCASSA with met

Created on

Thursday 18 July 2013

Posted on

Sunday 22 November 2020

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