2021 – National ADAPT

Disability Activists Confront #BuildBackBetter Holdout Senators 12/8/21

Press Advisory For Immediate Release

For information contact:

Rhoda Gibson, 617-504-1792 rhodagibson2@gmail.com

Jennifer McPhail, 512-627-5869 jennifer.adapt@sbcglobal.net
ADAPTNational@gmail.com

Who: National ADAPT

What: Confronting Senators blocking passage of the Build Back Better social infrastructure bill
Where: In front of the Russell Senate Office BuildingWashington DC 20510

When: Happening TODAY, Wednesday December 8, 2021, 12 PM

Why: To demand the Senate pass the Build Back Better social infrastructure bill, and support full funding of Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS), which keeps people out of institutions. HCBS funding also provides living wages for the attendants who provide essential, often intimate care for older and disabled people. ADAPT is also demanding that senators support funding for affordable, accessible, integrated housing, because you can’t have HCBS without the “H.”

NationalADAPT.org @RealNatlADAPT on Twitter & Instagram, ADAPT National on Facebook and TikTok, National ADAPT on YouTube ADAPTnational@gmail.com#DisabledNotDisposable #CareCantWait #BetterCareBetterJobs #HoUSed #ADAPTandSurvive #TheGrandmasAreComing #BuildBackBetter

Disability Community’s Recipe to Freedom

Photo Description: Recipe style format. White and blue snowflakes run across the top of the page. Along the right side of the page is a deer and various style leaves.

Image Text:

The Disability Community’s Recipe for Freedom

Pass Build Back Better

To prepare this you will need $150 billion for Home and Community Based Services (HCBS) sprinkled with $ 150 billion for Affordable, Accessible, Integrated, Housing. Spread these ingredients throughout the community and allow to settle in.

Once these funds have been infused in the community; they are ready to be used to:

Expand HCBS in Medicaid, Medicare and the Affordable Care Act throughout to increase access, quality, and uniformity nationwide.
Increase payment rates in a manner that offers attendants a “living wage.”
Expand affordable, accessible, integrated housing development and rent subsidy programs targeting low- and moderate-income people with disabilities, especially people who receive HCBS services.
Expand access to accessible home modifications programs to enable people to leave or avoid institutional settings thus saving millions of health care dollars.
And to ensure that your recipe is a success, make the program Money Follows the Person permanent.

This recipe will help more people be Home for The Holidays!

Season Greetings!

ADAPT

12/9/21 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: ADAPT JOINS COALITION IN SUPPORT OF BUILD BACK BETTER

National ADAPT joins grandmas across the country who have gathered in Washington, D.C. to turn up the pressure on the Senate to swiftly pass this legislation that will transform the way people with disabilities and the elderly access care now and in future generations. Elected leaders, direct care workers, family caregivers and people with disabilities will meet in front of the Capitol to share our decades of fighting for home and community based services and affordable, accessible, integrated housing , and demand that Congress take action in support of this once-in-a-generation opportunity to improve the quality of life for people with disabilities, the elderly, and direct care workers.

What:

Grandmas, elected leaders, care workers, disability rights activists and other caregiving advocates rally outside the Capitol to push the Senate to swiftly pass the Build Back Better Bill. The event will be livestreamed and grandmas across the country will participate virtually by sharing photo and video stories on social media. Spanish and American Sign Language interpretation available on site and online.

Who:

National ADAPT with support from the Long Term Supports and Services Coalition, Caring Across Generations, Care Can’t Wait Coalition, and Real Recovery Now coalitions.

When and Where:

Thursday, December 9, 2021 at 12:00 pm ET

In-person event: Outside the Capitol in Washington, D.C.

Virtual event: https://www.facebook.com/theRealNationalADAPT

For more information:

Jennifer McPhail 512-627-5869 jennifer.adapt@sbcglobal.net

Rhoda Gibson 617-504-1792 rhodagibson2@gmail.com

NationalADAPT.org @RealNatlADAPT on Twitter & Instagram, ADAPT National on Facebook, National ADAPT on YouTube ADAPTnational@gmail.com

#DisabledNotDisposable #CareCantWait #BetterCareBetterJobs #HoUSed #ADAPTandSurvive #TheGrandmasAreComing

***

Disability Activists Confront #BuildBackBetter Holdout Senators

Press Advisory For Immediate Release

For information contact: Rhoda Gibson, 617-504-1792 rhodagibson2@gmail.com Jennifer McPhail, 512-627-5869 jennifer.adapt@sbcglobal.net
ADAPTNational@gmail.com

Who: National ADAPT

What: Confronting Senators blocking passage of the Build Back Better social infrastructure bill

Where: In front of the Russell Senate Office Building Washington DC 20510

When: Happening TODAY, Wednesday December 8, 2021, 12 PM

NationalADAPT.org @RealNatlADAPT on Twitter & Instagram, ADAPT National on Facebook and National ADAPT on YouTube ADAPTnational@gmail.com#DisabledNotDisposable #CareCantWait #BetterCareBetterJobs #HoUSed #ADAPTandSurvive #TheGrandmasAreComing #BuildBackBetter

Disability Activists Confront #BuildBackBetter Holdout Representatives

Press Advisory For Immediate Release

For information contact

Josue Rodriguez: 915-449-3834

Jennifer McPhail: 512-627-5869

ADAPTNational@gmail.com

Disability Activists Confront #BuildBackBetter Holdout Representatives

Who: National ADAPT

What: Confronting Democratic Representatives blocking passage of the Build Back Better social infrastructure bill

Where: Outside Rayburn, Longworth, and Cannon House Office Buildings on 45 Independence Ave. SW

When: Happening Now, Wednesday, November 17, 2021

Why: To demand the Representatives stop blocking passage of the Build Back Better social infrastructure bill, and support full funding of Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS), which keeps people out of institutions. HCBS funding also provides living wages for the attendants who provide essential, often intimate care for older and disabled people.

ADAPT is also demanding that the House support funding for affordable, accessible, integrated housing, because you can’t have HCBS without the “H.”

NationalADAPT.org @RealNatlADAPT on Twitter & Instagram, ADAPT National on Facebook and TikTok, National ADAPT on YouTube ADAPTnational@gmail.com

#DisabledNotDisposable #CareCantWait #BetterCareBetterJobs #HoUSed #ADAPTandSurvive

ADAPTers behind a clear banner that reads Build Back Better Now. — ADAPTers behind a clear banner that reads Build Back Better Act Now.

National ADAPT Applauds Biden Administration for Build Back Better Legislation Framework

National ADAPT applauds the framework for the provisions in the Build Back Better legislation that provides $ 150 billion for home and community-based service and includes $150 billion for affordable housing throughout the United States. We additionally appreciate working with Rep. Maxine Waters and her staff in adding the $2.5 Billion of the $150 billion for 811 funding specifically for the disability community.

The process has just begun for this framework to become law but members of ADAPT are committed to continuing to be the voice for all who have been forced into institutions because of lack of either home and community-based services or affordable housing. It is in this spirit, we look forward to working with the Biden Administration and Congress to pass this legislation and end the institutional bias by providing HCBS and affordable, accessible, integrated housing.

We call on all of our political leaders to support this framework in its entirety and Free Our People!

October 6-7, 2021 Action Recap

October 7, 2021

Yesterday ADAPT activist from around the nation went to the Hart Senate Building to meet with Senators Manchin and Sinema. The reason we were wanting to meet with them both is that they are the two people who are holding up the human infrastructure projects in the Build Back Better Jobs bill. We were refused entry into the building because we were told that the building is closed unless you have an appointment.

We have requested meetings for some time now and have been ignored. We communicated this fact to the Capitol police. We also requested that they contact the Senators and ask them to come out. The police refused. The police gave us three warnings in about a period of ten minutes. 16 of us were arrested from the larger group of ADAPTers. We were ticketed and released. Although, that is not always the case when we have been arrested in the past fighting for our freedom for over the past 40 years in ADAPT.

Then we marched through the Capitol Complex to join a coalition of organizations advocating for the Build Back Better Jobs bill. We arrived to the Vigil for HCBS and Community Attendants/Direct Support workers wage increase. The vigil was awesome!

It was attended by National ADAPT and 15 other disability, aging, and caregiver organizations. ADAPTers hung in there from the evening of October 6th through 7PM of the 7th, some even camped out at the Capitol all night. We read the personal stories of people that use HCBS programs and the workers stories. It was also attended by Senator Bob Casey from Pennsylvania and Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington State. Senator Casey took the personal stories orgsnizations collected throughout the Country to use as an advocacy tool on behalf of the human infrastructure projects in the bill. Sometimes it can be very difficult to share our stories but they will be used to change the course of history for the better.

The Build Back Better is a result of all of ours and allied organizations hard work through the years and is an opportunity that only comes along once in a generation. We still have hard work to do to get it passed but everyone should be proud.

Press Coverage

The Care Movement Fights Back Against Cuts to Biden’s Historic Home Care Plan

IN THEIR OWN WORDS: WHY RECIPIENTS AND PROVIDERS OF HOME CARE SAY CONGRESS MUST ACT

Protesters push Congress for home care funding: ‘If we get sick, we leave and no one backs us up’

The mild-mannered senator behind a major liberal push

Senator Bob Casey Meets Disability Rights Advocates From 24-Hour Storytelling Vigil, Urges Congress to Pass the Build Back Better Plan

Don’t Cut Care

Uncertainty Surrounds Biden Plan To Boost Disability Services

ADAPT Starts Daylong Vigil in DC Joins Disability, Aging, and Caregiver Coalition to Press for Passage of Build Back Better Social Infrastructure Bill

For Immediate Release
For information contact:
Mike Oxford: 785-224-3865
Rhoda Gibson: 617-504-1792
Jennifer McPhail: 512-627-5869
ADAPT Starts Daylong Vigil in DC Joins Disability, Aging, and Caregiver Coalition to Press for Passage of Build Back Better Social Infrastructure Bill
Washington, DC, October 6, 2021—ADAPT and 15 other disability, aging, and caregiver organizations are holding a daylong vigil on Capitol grounds starting tonight to impress upon Congress the crucial need for fully funded Home and Community-Based Services, and affordable, accessible housing. Funding these two programs would help prevent the over 200,000 largely preventable deaths that have occurred in nursing facilities so far during the COVID-19 pandemic.“We in ADAPT have been fighting over 30 years for the services and housing that would allow those of us who are disabled and aging to live in our own homes and communities with the services we need instead of being forced into nursing homes and other institutions,” said Latoya Maddox, Philadelphia ADAPT organizer. “Congress has so far failed to ensure our freedom, and as a result Congress is partly responsible for the horrific number of nursing home COVID deaths.”Organizations participating in the vigil include the ACLU, ADAPT, The Arc of the United States, Autistic Self Advocacy Network, AAPD, Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, Be A Hero, Care Can’t Wait Coalition, Caring Across Generations, Little Lobbyists, Justice in Aging, National Council on Independent Living, National Domestic Workers Alliance, National Council on Aging, National Health Law Program, and SEIU. “We need home and community-based services to be a fully funded guarantee for older and disabled people, “ said Mike Oxford, ADAPT organizer in Kansas. “We need the caregivers who help us dress and bathe so we can work and go to school and volunteer to be paid a livable wage with benefits. And we need affordable, accessible housing so we have homes where we can receive the services that will help us live productive, contributing lives, and be included in our communities.” The vigil begins at 7pm tonight EDT. Coalition organizers invite all Republican senators along with Democratic Senators Manchin and Sinema to meet with vigil participants to learn how much their constituents need and support passage of the Build Back Better bill.

Disability Activists Confront #BuildBackBetter Holdout Senators

October 6, 2021
Press Advisory For Immediate Release

For information contact:
Lydia Nunez: 832-630-8419
Rhoda Gibson: 617-504-1792
Jennifer McPhail: 512-627-5869
ADAPTNational@gmail.com
Disability Activists Confront #BuildBackBetter Holdout Senators
Who: National ADAPT
What: Confronting Democratic Senators blocking passage of the Build Back Better social infrastructure bill
Where: Outside Hart Senate Office Building at 120 Constitution Ave NE, Washington, DC 20002, Offices of Sen. Kyrsten Sinema and Sen. Joe Manchin
When: Happening Now, Wednesday, October 6, 2021
Why: To demand Sen. Sinema and Sen. Manchin stop blocking passage of the Build Back Better social infrastructure bill, and support full funding of Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS), which keeps people out of institutions. HCBS funding also provides living wages for the attendants who provide essential, often intimate care for older and disabled people. ADAPT is also demanding that both senators support funding for affordable, accessible, integrated housing, because you can’t have HCBS without the “H.”
View our Demands here.

National ADAPT ADA 31st Anniversary Statement

31 years ago, President George Herbert Walker Bush signed the ADA into law with the words, “ Let the shameful wall of exclusion finally come tumbling down.” While there have certainly been advances during the past 31 years, and a reduction in disability discrimination, during the past year and a half we have painfully witnessed the enormous and preventable cost of the continued exclusion of disabled people from the general fabric of society.

For 31 years ADAPT has fought to undo the institutional bias in Medicaid that traps disabled people of all ages in nursing homes and other institutions, excluded from their communities.

For 31 years ADAPT has fought to make Home and Community Based Services (HCBS) the norm for disabled people of all ages so they can live in their own homes and communities while receiving the services and supports they need.

If Congress had listened to ADAPT over the past 31 years, the thousands and thousands of COVID deaths that occurred in the nation’s nursing homes in the past 18 months could have been prevented. If Congress had listened to ADAPT over the past 31 years, the Money Follows the Person Program that assists people to leave nursing homes and return to their communities would have been made permanent. If Congress had listened to ADAPT over the past 31 years, the nation’s workforce providing HCBS would be receiving the livable wages and benefits they deserve for the hard and essential work they do. Passing the ADA was a tremendous victory, filled with the promise of liberty and equity. Implementing and enforcing it has proven to be another fight at best, and an exercise in futility at worst.

The yearly anniversary of the ADA will only be truly and authentically celebrated when it’s long overdue promises become our everyday reality for all.