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დასაწყისი / გალერეა / Baltimore, Spring 1991 30
In the Spring of 1991, ADAPT went to Baltimore, home of Social Security and the Health Care Finance Administration. The first day we blocked all the entrances to the main Social Security Building at lunch. Then after several hours, we moved down and took over the main intersection in front of the complex. They had to build a road to let people out, and we dubbed it Wade's Way. The next day we targeted a different Social Security building in the complex where they handle disability determination. The last day we rode down to Washington DC and took over the Health and Human Services building on Independence. Our message for the week: Free Our People from nursing homes and other institutions.
- ADAPT (643)
"The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those the suppress." Fredrick Douglas, 1849 - ADAPT (666)
Looking into a crowd of ADAPT folks. Bob Kafka in center is talking through a microphone. Left of him is Chris Colsey with a headband, to Bob's right is Mike Auberger looking down, Bobby Thompson facing sideways, and Jane Embry. Directly behind Bob is Robert Reuter facing backwards, and another man from Chicago or Atlanta ? In the row behind them (L-R) Jimmy Small, Wayne Becker, Marilyn of Atlanta, Bernard Baker, and behind them other ADAPT members. In front on left Shel Trapp is facing the group at edge of picture, and Mike Ervin is facing forward. - ADAPT (670)
I want to say to people who say they don't like ADAPT tactics: Do you really want our people out? Or are you sitting home saying, "Oh, those nursing homes shouldn't do that!" How many people are going to get free because you hold that opinion? What are you doing about it? People are turned off by the arrests, by our confrontational style. "I'm not going to do ADAPT-style confrontations" — we hear that a lot. If you don't want to be on the front lines but you do want to help, there's plenty to do: raising dollars so we can get to our actions, working with people in your community to make these issues known, forming your own group, bringing some attention to the issues in your own home town. We sure would welcome your help. ADAPT puts the edge on it, sets the margin. This is as far as we go, this is all we will take. We will not be moved. This article is taken from a conversation with Bob Kafka of ADAPT in Austin. The photographer is Toni Olin of ADAPT in Cumberland Furnace, Tennessee. You can reach ADAPT people at either of these tele-phone numbers: Colorado • 303-733-9324 Texas • 512-442-0252 [image] [no image caption] - ADAPT (645)
Two lines of cars fill a street. Some drivers are in their cars, others stand beside them. A crowd of people stands in front of the cars, An ADAPT flag is in the middle and just visible among some are wheelchairs blocking the road. On the other side of the road lush green lawn and trees form a backdrop. - ADAPT (647)
Policeman with helmet directs traffic from one parking lot across grass into another. A makeshift ramp has been placed to allow cars off the curb into the other parking lot. ADAPT dubbed this jerry rigged exit "Wade's Way." - ADAPT (642)
Tim Cook, ADAPT's attorney, stands, hands on hips, in the middle of a very large group of ADAPT protesters. He is wearing a red tie and has his jacket slung on one arm with his briefcase. - ADAPT (651)
A black and white, slightly blurry, picture of ADAPTers sitting side by side in the crosswalks, blocking the intersection leading into the Social Security national Headquarters. In the background you can see media trucks and plain clothes police. - ADAPT (669)
TUESDAY April 30, 1991, THE SUN, BALTIMORE, MARYLAND VOL 308, NO. 141 Photo by The Sun, Bo Rader: A line of people in wheelchairs (and two people standing with them) sit facing forward and sideways across a road. At least four lanes of traffic are blocked behind them as far back as you can see. Group includes Dennis Schreiber from DARE in Chicago, Albert from Long Island, possibly Barb Wesolac in the pink jacket, and Pat Puckett in a green jacket. Caption reads: Disabled protesters stop traffic. More than 125 handicapped activists blocked traffic at the intersection of Security Boulevard and Woodlawn Drive in Baltimore County for more than three hours yesterday afternoon to demand more funding for at-home care for the disabled. The group plans to resume its protest today at the Health Care Financing Administration in Woodlawn. (Article on Page 4D] - ADAPT (653)
[Headline] 300 activists protest at U.S. agency [Subheading] ■Increased funding for at-home care of disabled sought. By Meredith Schlow Evening Sun Staff Mike Auberger says he'd rather be jailed than placed in a nursing home. "At least I know when I get out of jail it's a seven-day sentence, a 10-day sentence," the 36-year-old quadriplegic said. "When you go into a nursing home, it's a life sentence." Auberger and approximately 300 other disabled activists from 25 states picketed outside the Health Care Financing Administration in Woodlawn yesterday, protesting the lack of national policy to fund personal attendant services. The protesters, members of American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today, want 25 percent of Medicaid's $23 billion, currently budgeted "in favor of nursing homes, to instead be budgeted for the establishment of community-based national attendant service programs. Such programs, they say, would allow people with disabilities and the elderly to live independently in their own homes rather than in nursing homes. There are about 43 million disabled people in the United States, 1.5 million of whom would live in the community if attendant/personal assistance support services were available. Auberger, who traveled from Denver for the protest, runs a home health care agency that employs about 90 people and provides care for approximately 150 disabled and elderly people in Denver and Colorado Springs. [image] [image caption] By Bo Rader — Evening Sun Staff. Members of ADAPT block entrances to the Health Care Financing Administration in Woodlawn during protest. The fewer than half the states, including Maryland, have programs for in-home attendant services, according to Ellen Leiserson, an independent social worker who was previously program manager for the In-Home Aids Services for the state Department of Human Resources. Leiserson said that in Maryland, there are long waiting lists for those who wish to employ attendants. "My level of disability would cost $60,000" a year in a nursing home, Auberger said. "Using attendant services, it costs $2,000 per month." "We are not going to take it any longer," Wade Blank, co-founder of ADAPT, shouted through a speaker to an enthusiastic crowd. "We will not be ignored . . . we will come again and again and again until nursing homes begin to lose their funding and people are allowed to live in their own homes." A picket who identified himself only as "Bob," said that, while he isn't immediately in need of home attendant care, he doesn't know what the future holds. "I don't want to give up my house I don't want to give up my garden," said the full-time engineer. "I can't even visualize doing my job from a nursing home . . . they wouldn't even let me come and go without signed permission." [image] [image caption] ADAPT members block the sole exit to the HHS Disability Determination Unit at closing time Tuesday, April 30 [image] [image caption] Bob and Renate Conrad of Colorado Springs are dragged off their positions blocking HHS driveway Wednesday, May 1. ADAPT intends to pursue Sullivan until he sits down with the group and agrees to rewrite Medicaid rules. The group may be having some effect: Recently, Tennessee ADAPT was able to wrest from HCFA a waiver for "home based service options for older and disabled" Tennesseans which had been tabled as recently as a month before the Washington demonstrations. [image] [image caption] Police line up as ADAPT members wrap themselves around the 1.08-mile circumference of the HCFA/SSA complex in Baltimore on Tuesday and block its 35 doors. [Subheading] ADAPT protests at HCFA headquarters Over 200 ADAPT activists took their fight against nursing homes to the nation's capital in April. Their targets: The Health Care Financing Administration which doles out Medicaid money to states (and which insists on giving the bulk of the dollars to nursing homes) and its parent Department of Health and Human Services. Over 100 ADAPT wheelchair riders stormed the HCFA/HHS Disability Determination Unit complex in suburban Baltimore on Tuesday, April 30 and blocked the sole exit at closing time, forcing police to cut another road from the parking lot so employees could exit. On Wednesday the group took on HHS headquarters in downtown Washington, D.C. There were no arrests during the three-day action, and HHS Secretary Louis H. Sullivan continued to dodge the group. But that didn't stop ADAPT from making their point: that HHS redirect a fourth of its $23 billion budgeted for nursing homes to in-home services. [two images] [caption] Activists try to crawl under police barricades around HHS building Wednesday. Lee Jackson of Atlanta blocks driveway at HHS Unit. Photos by Tom Olin [Subheading] Disabled vets demonstrate [image] [image caption] Some 300 disabled activists from 25 states, including more than 100 in wheelchairs, block entrances to the Hubert Humphrey Building on Independence Avenue SW, headquarters of the Department of Health and Human Services, for almost five hours yesterday to protest policies they say favor nursing homes over home care. Photo by Willard Volz The Washington Times THE EVENING SUN, WEDNESDAY, MAY 1, 1991 [Headline] Disabled protesters b lock HCFA workers [Subheading] Demonstrators make a point about freedom. By Meredith Schlow Evening Sun Staff Ruth Stringfellow's car was only about 50 feet from the exit of the Social Security Administration and Health Care Financing Administration building when the group of dis-abled demonstrators blocked her in. "I almost made it," she said sadly, looking out toward Woodlawn Road. Yesterday, for the second day in a row, demonstrators protested federal rules that they say relegate many of them to nursing homes when they should be able to live on their own. The government, they said, should shift money in the Medicaid health program, which serves the poor and disabled, away from nursing homes and toward payments to attendants who can care for the disabled in their own homes. Protesters were members of the national group Americans Disabled for Attendant Programs Today. While Monday's demonstration was generally uneventful, yesterday's, which began just before 3 p.m., prevented employees from the two offices from leaving for several hours after their work day was complete. Demonstrators said they wanted to show able-bodied people what it's like to have the privilege of freedom taken away, something they say happens every day inside nursing homes. "It's the same kind of feeling -you can't leave when you want to. You need my permission," said Mike Auberger, who traveled from Denver for the protest. Although employees expressed anger and frustration over their in-ability to leave work, some said that they still felt respect for the protesters' cause. Most said that the demonstration was held in the wrong location, however. "I can understand what they're protesting about, but there's nothing we can do about it here — they should be where the politicians are," said one woman who declined to give her name. "They have a legitimate com-plaint, but I think they should be in D.C.," agreed Pauline DeVance. But protester Nate Butler said the Woodlawn employees are an "integral part of a system that's really oppressive." "I'm sympathetic to all these folks not able 0 get home, but this is a really miner inconvenience com-pared to the inconveniences suffered by those in nursing homes," he said. By 4:30, Baltimore County police had created a makeshift exit behind the building into the Knight's Inn parking lot, through which employees departed, one car at a time. Police were reluctant to arrest protesters because their disabilities make them more difficult to trans port and house, according to Baltimore County police spokesman Sgt Steven Doarnberger. - ADAPT (660)
This page continues the article from Image 653. Full text is available on 653 for easier reading. - ADAPT (661)
This page continues the article from Image 653. Full text is available on 653 for easier reading. - ADAPT (668)
This page continues the article from Image 653. The full text is available on 653 for easier reading. - ADAPT (655)
"Blessed the agitator; whose touch makes the dead walk." Thomas McGrath - ADAPT (667)
[Headline] Disabled activists block off building 5/2/91 Washington (AP)- Disabled activists, including more than 100 in wheelchairs, blocked entrances to the headquarters of the Health and Human Services Department on Wednesday to protest policies that they said favor nursing homes over home care. Some of the protesters discarded their wheelchairs and crutches and tried to get past a police line securing the building. Some crawled under parked police cars and tried to squeeze past the legs of officers. There were no arrests. The group American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today, or ADAPT, wants the Medicaid program to redirect $5.5 billion to be spent on community-based attendant service programs. - ADAPT (664)
[Headline] Protesters advocate home care for disabled WASHINGTON (AP) Disabled activists, including more than 100 in wheelchairs, blocked entrances to the headquarters of the Health and Human Services Department on Wednesday to protest policies they said favor nursing homes over home care. Some of the protesters discarded their wheelchairs and crutches and tried tog et past a police line securing the building. Some crawled under parked police cars and tried to squeeze past the legs of po- [Subheading] THE STARS AND STRIPES lice officers who stood in front of the en-trances. There were no arrests. "To people like myself, this is a life and death matter," said Lee Sanders of Houston, who crawled out of his wheel-chair and laid on the ground. "It's the difference between living in a nursing home and living at home." For most of the afternoon, access to the Hubert Humphrey Building was limited to underground tunnels that connect it with other buildings. Cars also were unable to leave the parking lot under the health department's headquarters building, just a couple of blocks from the Capitol. The approximately 175 protesters, organized by a group called American Dis-abled for Attendant Programs Today, or ADAPT, want the Medicaid program to redirect 25 percent of the $23 billion it currently spends on nursing homes. They want this amount; about $5.5 billion, to be spent on establishment of community-based attendant service programs that would give disabled people the chance to stay at home rather than enter a nursing home. "Not only is it cost effective, it's the right to dignity and freedom of choice," said Mike Auberger of Denver, a co-founder of ADAPT. He said 7.7 million Americans are in jeopardy of having to go to a nursing home a cost Medicaid would pay ---- because they can't afford a home-care attendant. Medicaid has a more restrictive policy in reimbursing for home care than for nursing home stays, he said. However, he noted, nursing home care costs.in the range of $30,000 to $60,000 a year, while attendant care costs $15,000 to $30,000. Gail Wilensky, head of the Health Care Financing Administration, which administers Medicaid, said many of the problems the group is angry about are not handled by the Medicaid program. Also, she said, some state Medicaid pro-grams do cover attendant and personal care-type services. States design and operate their own Medicaid programs under broad federal guidelines.