Author: Josue Rodriguez

ADAPT Holds Web Hearing in DC To Demand COVID Relief and Services for Aging and Disabled

For Immediate Release: Friday, October 2, 2020

For More information: 
Erika Jones, erickatiff@hotmail.com, (585) 261-1594, www.nationaladapt.org

ADAPT Holds Web Hearing in DC To Demand COVID Relief and Services for Aging and Disabled

Washington DC—- ADAPT, the nation’s largest grassroots disability rights activist organization, is camped on the East lawn of the nation’s Capitol, where they will hold a hearing from 2pm to 4pm  Friday to impress Congress and American voters with the vital importance of Medicaid funded Home and Community-based Services (HCBS). These services make it possible for disabled and aging people to remain in their own homes instead of being forced into nursing homes and institutions, and also are critical for moving people out of  those nursing homes and institutions which have become literal death traps during the Covid pandemic.

“Our hearing will be available on ADAPT National Facebook Live, and speakers include Sen. Bob Casey, former Congressperson Beto O’Rourke, and people from Texas, to Pennsylvania, to Florida and states in between,” said Jennifer McPhail of ADAPT of Texas. “There will be testimony on how the loss of the Affordable Care Act would be devastating for people with pre-existing conditions, and why it is imperative that Congress pass a new COVID relief package that includes funding for HCBS, PPE, housing, and livable wages for those who provide our care.”

Disabled and aging people in nursing homes, institutions, and other congregate settings like jails, prisons, and detention camps, are dying of COVID at alarming rates, and in alarming numbers. COVID relief packages so far have pumped money into nursing facilities, but those funds have not prevented 40% of the COVID deaths, a total of over 70,000, from occurring in the nation’s nursing homes. Every day more and more nursing facilities and other congregate settings are becoming COVID cluster sites.

ADAPT’s hearing in DC will be echoed in communities across the nation, where testimony will be given locally and fed in to the online hearing.

“Of the measures passed to date by Congress to address the COVID pandemic, none  has authorized funding to protect and support the 12 million disabled and aging people living in their own homes,” said Rhoda Gibson activist from MASS ADAPT. “Nor has any funding been authorized to provide a living wage, benefits, and hazard pay during the pandemic to support the attendant care workers who keep disabled and aging people living in their own homes. And none of the funding authorized so far has ensured that personal protective equipment and other necessary supplies are available to people living in the community and their workers.” 

Confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett before the November elections will also be addressed in the hearing.  Based on the record of her decisions to date, and the upcoming ACA case on the Supreme Court docket,  her confirmation could have dire consequences for disabled, aging and low income people.  ADAPT demands that the appointment should not be rushed, but should be made by the incoming president.

#ADAPTpplsHearing #DisabledNotDisposable #ADAPTandSurvive #LivesWorthyOfLife
NationalADAPT.org @RealNatlADAPT on Twitter & Instagram, ADAPT National on Facebook and TikTok, National ADAPT on YouTube
ADAPTnational@gmail.com

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ADAPT-10.2.20-Hearing-Press-ReleaseDownload

National ADAPT Press Release October 1, 2020

For Immediate Release
October 1, 2020

For More information: 
Erika Jones, erickatiff@hotmail.com, (585) 261-1594, www.nationaladapt.org

ADAPT Demands Congress Include Funding for HCBS to Stop COVID Nursing Home Deaths of Aging and Disabled

Washington DC—- ADAPT, the nation’s largest grassroots disability rights activist organization, is on the East lawn of the nation’s Capitol, demanding Congress include significant funding in a new COVID relief package to stem the flood of deaths that have occurred in congregate settings during the COVID -19 pandemic. The funding is vital for preventing the forced institutionalization that has led to thousands of deaths in these congregate settings, and for providing PPE and adequately paid caregivers to keep people safer in their own homes. Additional funding is also needed to provide affordable, accessible housing in the community. A second ADAPT demand is permanent reauthorization of the Money Follows the Person program. And a third demand is no Supreme Court appointment until after the November 3rd election.

Disabled and aging people in nursing homes, institutions, and other congregate settings like jails, prisons, and detention camps, are dying of COVID at alarming rates, and in alarming numbers. Covid relief packages so far have pumped money into nursing facilities, but those funds have not prevented 40% of the Covid deaths from occurring in the nation’s nursing homes. Every day more and more nursing facilities and other congregate settings are becoming Covid cluster sites.

Multiple chapters in ADAPT’s national network are joining the call to action in their own communities to demand that Congress provide funding for Home and Community Based Services to protect disabled and aging people living in the community; and to help disabled and aging people currently housed in institutions move to the safety of their own homes by reauthorizing the federal Money Follows the Person program. 

“Of the measures passed to date by Congress to address the COVID pandemic, none  has authorized funding to protect and support the 12 million disabled and aging people living in their own homes,” said Rhoda Gibson activist from MA ADAPT. “Nor has any funding been authorized to provide a living wage, benefits, and hazard pay during the pandemic to support the attendant care workers who keep disabled and aging people living in their own homes. And none of the funding authorized so far has ensured that personal protective equipment and other necessary supplies are available to people living in the community and their workers.” 

The federal Money Follows the Person program has supported thousands of people to move from institutions into their own homes. In the absence of formal reauthorization since the program sunset in 2018, some states have had to end their programs, and all states have seen a sharp decline in the number of people who have been able to benefit from the program. Permanent reauthorization is necessary to ensure a safe way for people to get out of dangerous institutions and back to their own homes. 

Confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett before the November elections could have dire consequences for disabled and aging people and their health care, based on the record of her decisions to date, and the upcoming cases on the Supreme Court docket. ADAPT demands that the appointment should not be rushed, but should be made by the incoming president.

#ADAPTpplsHearing #DisabledNotDisposable #ADAPTandSurvive #LivesWorthyOfLife
NationalADAPT.org @RealNatlADAPT on Twitter & Instagram, ADAPT National on Facebook and TikTok, National ADAPT on YouTube
ADAPTnational@gmail.com

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National-ADAPT-Press-Release-Oct-1-2020-FinalDownload

National ADAPT Condemns Police Brutality and Calls for Racial Justice

In the middle of a pandemic, Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) are not just being killed at alarming rates by COVID19, but are yet again being senselessly targeted by police, and some have been murdered.

For years, on the first day of each National ADAPT Action we hold legal and new members’ meetings. These meetings always include a reminder of police brutality toward Black, brown and indigenous people, and people from other oppressed communities.

National ADAPT condemns the recent murders of:

Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old, unarmed young man who was out jogging, and murdered by the McMichaels, who were tipped off by an off-duty police officer;

Nicolas Chavez, a 27-year-old father of 3 young children, was fatally shot after Chavez was on his knees reeling from being shot not only by sandbags but also a taser;

Breonna Taylor was a 26-year-old certified EMT and first responder during the pandemic. On May 13 police forcibly entered her apartment and shot her 8 times as she slept.

Malik Williams The Police Department in Federal Way, Washington executed this man while he sat in his car. Not being able to move he was shot 86 times.

Jeremy McDole 28, parapalegic killed by Wilmington, DE police.

Saheed Vassell shot 19 times by NYC police Department. The officers jumped out and started firing without warning.He had a psychiatric disability.

Dreasjon “Sean” Reed, a 21-year-old, gunned down by Indianapolis police while he was live streaming a Facebook video; and

On May 26, George Floyd, who was murdered by suffocation while handcuffed and on the ground when a police officer kneeled with all his weight on Floyd’s neck.

We vehemently condemn and must put an end to all murders of BIPOC by police brutality.

Engaging in protest and non-violent civil disobedience is a right National ADAPT has long exercised under the First Amendment of our nation’s Constitution.
However, to protest without fear of violent reprisal, and even death, is a privilege reserved for our white siblings in the disability rights movement. Our disability rights movement owes a great deal to the Black civil rights movement that laid the groundwork for us under the spray of firehoses, the torrent of fists, and too many bullets.

We live today with a system that compounds the social and psychic damage experienced by the ancestors of Black, brown and Indigenous people, bridging the mob lynchings, and smallpox laden blankets of yesteryear into police “lynchings” of today. It is long past time for this to end!

National ADAPT, our local chapters, and our individual advocates and activists commit to the following:

We will call out as racial terrorism the acts of white people when they threaten, harass, and commit acts of violence against Black people and other people of color in public spaces.

We will not re-play, post, or amplify images, videos or depictions of Black people and other people from marginalized groups experiencing violence, because we recognize the trauma experienced by repeated exposure to these images.

We will continue to actively oppose the institutionalization of all people, and the damage done through institutionalization. Our fight includes opposing mass incarceration, the over-criminalization in the legal system, and the racial presumption of guilt that permeate the Black experience in this country and result in disproportionate numbers of BIPOC living in prisons, jails, psychiatric facilities, nursing facilities, and other institutions.

We will continue our anti-racism and equity work to lift up the experiences of multiply marginalized members of our community, to center them, their stories, and their solutions to the systemic racism and ableism we are committed to bringing to an end.
We hold ourselves and our disability rights siblings to the anti-racism work that is intrinsically linked to the fight for disability rights.

As an organization made up of committed social justice warriors, ADAPT cleaves to the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as one of the leaders of the movement we build upon in our work, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

We, the members of National ADAPT, demand the senseless murders end. We can have no justice, no peace, no freedom and no rest until we have justice for our Black and Brown and Indigenous family.

#BlackLivesMatter

#SayTheirNames

#LivesWorthyOfLife