For Immediate Release: May 10th, 2023
Who: National ADAPT
What: Demonstration to demand that the Administration for Community Living Stop Funding Guardianship Systems that Institutionalize People with Disabilities
When: Wednesday, May 10th 1pm
Where: Administration for Community Living, 330 C St SW,
Washington, DC 20201
For More information:
Misty Dion 570 367 6269 mdion@cilncp.org
Latoya Maddox 267 815 8688 lmaddox83@gmail.com
National ADAPT Social Media: LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/adaptnational
National ADAPT Demands that Administration for Community Living (ACL) Immediately Stop Funding Guardianship Systems that Institutionalize People with Disabilities and Prioritize People With Disabilities
Washington, D.C.- The disabled community has paid the price of guardianships. National ADAPT Demands that the Administration for Community Living (ACL) Stop Funding Guardianship Systems that Institutionalize People with Disabilities.
National ADAPT strongly opposes the use of guardianship as a tool for institutionalization and for infringing on the rights of people with disabilities. Upholding the mission of independent living (IL), we call for the end to all systems of oppression that segregate and incarcerate our people. Guardianship, by diminishing our self-determination, dignity, and community participation, is wholly incompatible with the IL philosophy.
Contrary to the Olmstead decision and its own IL principles, ACL continues to fund agencies that wrongly pursue guardianships through profit-taking schemes and unethical relationships with peer agencies and the legal profession. These guardianships force people into long-term care facilities and other institutions where they lose access to less restrictive alternatives and community supports. We demand ACL stop funding these entities and to explicitly oppose unwarranted guardianships. National ADAPT further calls on ACL to ensure that anyone subjected to guardianship, whether institutionalized or not, will have full access to federally mandated Centers for Independent Living (CIL) services and the unimpeded opportunity to enjoy less restrictive alternatives.
On the 40th Anniversary of National ADAPT, National ADAPT, the nation’s largest grassroots disability rights activist organization, has been urging ACL to act on these critical issues. These programs enable people to live outside institutions and in freedom in their communities. National ADAPT calls for a meeting with ACL w/in 30 days of this Action to ensure that the voices of countless Americans with disabilities and aging adults under, or at risk of unnecessary guardianship are heard.
ADAPT Demands ACL:
1. Immediately audit the use of ACL funds in states to identify financial support going to guardianship programs that do not adhere to the spirit and letter of the Americans with Disabilities Act and Olmstead decision.
2. Immediately cease funding to Area Agency on Aging (AAA) that operate conflicting, dual roles as guardians, Adult Protective Services (APS) or ombudsmen; and direct those funds to a collaborative partnership between a CIL and a Protection and Advocacy System (P&A) with an emphasis on the mitigation and restoration of unnecessary loss of rights for those at risk and under needless guardianship.
3. Within 45 days of this Action issue federal guidelines and directives to the Administration On Aging (AOA), its funded state aging programs & AAAs that clearly affirm the federally mandated role of the Office of Independent Living Programs (OILP), its CILs, Supportive Independent Living Centers (SILC) and Protection & Advocacy agencies to advance the community integration of people with disabilities, including providing for the least restrictive supports and services in the settings of their choice. Reaffirming the most integrated settings mandate of Olmstead.
4. Immediately institute strict parameters on ACL funding to states, requiring transparency, accountability, reporting and adherence to the Administration’s underlying mission. This is imperative for accountability on all systems involving guardianship.
5. Immediately apply penalties to states using ACL funds that violate the civil and human rights to self-determination and due process of people with disabilities through abusive guardianship practices.
National ADAPT calls on ACL to uphold its commitment to IL and include those with lived experiences in assessing support for agencies that establish or promote the use of guardianships. As outlined in Senators Bob Casey and Mike Braun’s proposed Guardianship Bill of Rights, work with the Secretary of Health and Human Services to develop procedures that will offer real protections to our community and finally stop the abuse and exploitation of our people.
Free Our People Now!
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