[Headline] ADAPT Activists Arrested in Chicago

American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today (ADAPT) activists were arrested outside the American Medical Association (AMA) headquarters in Chicago following protests and presentation of a list of demands involving Medicaid reform and support of the Community Choice Act (S.799, H.R. 1621).

An estimated 500 disability activists converged in front of the AMA building, ready to present a list of demands for the organization, including to endorse the Community Choice Act and actively promote its passage; to assure that people with disabilities and senior citizens get real choice in long term care services and supports and are able to live in the most integrated setting; and to provide medical providers with continuing medical education programs about community-based alternatives to institutionalization.

Illinois is considered by ADAPT to be the poster child for this larger national problem. The crisis is directly caused by a record of bad decisions made by Illinois state officials, and the institutional bias built into the way the nation's long term care system is funded.

Gov. Blagojevich has plans to reopen a state institution for per-sons with developmental disabilities. He has not shown support for Money Follows the Person legislation. Currently, Illinois ranks 41st in the nation for providing the community-based services that will allow disabled and older citizens to stay in their own homes.


"It turns my stomach to know that my state, historically a home of civil rights in America for people of color, is the same state that is one of the worst civil rights performers in regard to people with disabilities," said Chicago native Larry Biondi, an organizer with Chicago ADAPT. "I'm ashamed of Illinois' record of institutionalizing people with dis-abilities. Right now there almost 20,000 people who have said they want to get out of Illinois' nursing homes- nursing homes they never wanted to go into in the
first place. But they were forced to go there by the institutional bias in Medicaid funding."

While in Chicago, ADAPT also held a national housing forum that was attended by HUD Fair Housing Assistant Secretary Kim Kendrick, and state and local officials. At the forum, ADAPT revealed its national housing agenda, and distributed information on pending visitability legislation, and the redirection of HUD's 811 Supportive Housing

Continued on page 21

Created on

Tuesday 23 July 2013

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Friday 18 December 2020

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