Chicago Defender, Thursday May 14, 1992

ADAPT shuts down Illinois center
ADAPT protests budget cuts
by Dobie Holland

Hundreds of wheelchair-bound demonstrators shut down the State of Illinois Center after they converged on the building Wednesday to protest the impending budget cuts in the Home care program for the disabled.

The shut down occurred after members of the Americans Disabled for Attendant Programs Today (ADAPT) were denied access to the governor’s 16th floor offices. The group retaliated with a blockade of escalators and elevators.

Although ADAPT members faced barricades outside the center, once they had stormed inside, security police operating the elevators refused to allow most of the wheelchair-bound protesters upstairs.

Mike Ervin, one of the Chicago coordinators for ADAPT, said they had no choice but to block the paths of pedestrians in the building by setting up wheelchair blockades of escalators and elevators in the center. They demanded a meeting with the governor.

Gov. Jim Edgar was in Springfield but it was not clear by the Chicago Defender's press deadline if he would meet with the group.

Gary Mack, a spokesman for the governor, said the State of Illinois has one the most “liberal programs" in the country for the disabled and cuts are being made “across the board” in the wake of a severe budget deficit.

Mack said the program will lose $3 million — “a small amount" — a reduction from $68 million to $65 million.

Mack added the governor was not responsible for denying the protesters access to the elevators.

"They (security) have been trying to keep this place operating," Mack said. “But as l understand it, we are letting some people up here (on the 16th floor).

One oi those people allowed up in the elevators to sit in the governor’s 16th floor lobby was Paulette Patterson. Patterson, who was not a member of the protest group, said she was denied access to the elevators on Tuesday when she came to the building to eat breakfast.

Patterson, 35, of Chicago, said she has filed a discrimination suit against the state because she was not allowed free passage through the building “simply because I was in a wheelchair.

“l was not with this group before,” she said. “But I am a member now."

Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris, commenting on the conflict between security personnel and protesters, said during a Tuesday press conference: “My job is not to judge anybody but to make sure no one's rights have been violated."

Created on

Friday 12 July 2013

Posted on

Thursday 29 November 2018

Tags

ADAPT - American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today, blocking elevators, blocking escalators, budget cuts, Chicago, discrimination, home care, lawsuit, Mike Ervin, Paulette Patterson, protest, security guards, State of Illinois Center, wheelchair bound

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