City of Philadelphia
Proclamation

ADAPT is the leading direct action organization for the civil rights of Americans with disabilities. For 20 years, ADAPT has been a leader in the fight for accessible public transportation, the redirection of public funds from nursing homes and institutions to community-based services, and for a national personal assistance policy based on functional need, not diagnosis.

Nursing homes are the most expensive and least desirable form of long-term care, yet they are required by federal Medicaid policy in every state. Americans with disabilities are demanding an end to the system that forces people into institutions and nursing homes through the passage of an amendment to Medicaid legislation.

This amendment, the Medicaid Community Attendant Services And Supports Act (MiCASSA), would provide community attendant services and supports which range from assisting with activities of daily living (eating, grooming, dressing, bathing, transferring), instrumental activities of daily living (meal planning and preparation, managing finances, shopping, household chores, phoning, participating in the community), and other health-related functions. It would include hands-on assistance, supervision and/or [illegible], as well as help to learn, keep and enhance skills to accomplish such activities.

ADAPT's Free Our People March, an historic 14-day, 144-mile march, will start off on Thursday morning, September 4, 2003, from the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia to Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. It will end at the Upper Senate Park on September 17, 2003, with the largest disability rights rally in history.

Therefore,

I, John F. Street, Esq., Mayor of the City of Philadelphia, do hereby proclaim Thursday, September 4, 2003, as

ADAPT'S FREE OUT PEOPLE DAY

in our great city. and urge all Philadelphians to help people with disabilities to live fuller, richer lives in their communities, not in institutions, so that they can have opportunities to obtain education, employment, and become contributing members of their neighborhoods.

[signed] John F. Street
[typed] John F. Street

[seal of the city]

Given under my hand and the Seal of the City of Philadelphia, this fourth day of September, two thousand and three.

Created on

Tuesday 23 July 2013

Posted on

Friday 27 November 2020

Albums

• Free Our People March, 144 miles Philadelphia to DC, September 2003

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