Category: Uncategorized

Disability Activists Confront #BuildBackBetter Holdout Senators

ADAPT Free Our People Logo

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.

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

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.

National ADAPT Statement Endorsing Chairwoman Waters’ Housing Infrastructure Bill

National ADAPT, the grassroots, activist, disability justice organization enthusiastically endorses the housing infrastructure bill drafted by Chairwoman Waters and her Committee. ADAPT has fought for over 30 years for disabled people to be able to live in their own homes and communities; marching, protesting, even being arrested. Lack of affordable, accessible, integrated housing remains one of the biggest barriers to independence for the disability community.  This bill supports disabled people in an unprecedented and historic  manner;  greatly expanding vouchers for rent subsidies and for relocating from institutions, doubling accessibility requirements in public housing and adding basic accessibility  called “visitability” in all federally funded housing.

National ADAPT Condemns Violence Against AAPI Community

National ADAPT condemns the attacks against Asian American and Pacific Islanders across the United States. National ADAPT believes that every human being has the right to be safe and to be treated with respect.

Our hearts go out to those who lost loved ones as well as to the survivors of these brutal attacks. Nearly 4,000 hate related incidents have been reported against the AAPI community since the Coronavirus was first detected in the United States last year. Many of those attacks were against elderly and disabled Asians and Pacific Islanders, and over half occurred in the state of California.

National ADAPT is committed to anti-racism. We will continue to do the work required to be both inclusive of all people, and an active and responsible ally. We look forward to working with our siblings in the Asian American and Pacific Islander Community to build a more just and equitable society, while continuing to work to end the institutional bias that exists in the United States.

COVID Relief MUST Include Disability Community Needs: Take Action Today!

Negotiations continue in Congress on a COVID relief package.

The House has passed two different COVID relief packages since May. The Senate and the White House offers fail to meet the urgent needs of the disability community. The “Skinny” Bills offered to date do not include ANY of the priorities we have been urging our members of Congress to address, like targeted funding for home and community based services (HCBS). HCBS keeps disabled people out of congregate settings where COVID-19 is deadly.

Senate Republicans have been insistent that COVID relief include a dangerous provision that would give businesses – including schools and medical providers – immunity from being held liable for harm they cause in almost all circumstances. They want provisions that shield employers and people who own, lease, or operate public accommodations from violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Liability relief provisions such as these remove accountability. These demands are about protecting businesses and profits over people.

Congress needs to hear from us again. They need to hear from advocates about the importance of including the needs of the disability community in their COVID-response.

COVID Relief must contain:

Funding and support for Home and Community Based Services.

Extension of Money Follows the Person demonstration project grants.

Resources to help people living in the community with personal protective equipment and sanitation supplies for them and their workers.

Support for Direct Support Workers through sick leave, benefits, and wage enhancements, including hazard, retainer, and overtime pay.

Support for people to maintain and secure affordable, accessible, integrated housing.

Take Action!

Contact your Members of Congress today! It is critical our Members of Congress hear from us while they are negotiating a final package. Even if you have called your Members before, they need to hear from you again. Make sure to tell them why HCBS funding is critical, and that it MUST be included in the next COVID-19 package! Disability Priorities CANNOT be negotiated out of this next package.

-You can find your Senators’ contact forms at senate.gov and your Representative’s contact form at house.gov/representatives.

-You can find your Members’ phone numbers, Twitter handles, Facebook pages, and other contact information on Contacting Congress.

-You can also tweet at Congressional leadership – Mitch McConnell (@SenateMajLdr), Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer), Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi), and Kevin McCarthy (@GOPLeader).

Here is a sample script for calling or emailing. Please personalize it and put it in your own words if you can:

Hi, my name is (NAME), and I’m from (CITY, STATE).

I am (calling / writing) to ask you to include funding for home and community based services in the COVID-19 relief bill. The need for dedicated HCBS funding is more urgent than ever. We have seen alarming rates of death in nursing facilities and other congregate settings. Many disabled people use HCBS to live in their own homes, but people are struggling to stay in the community. Without more funding, many more people will be forced into congregate settings, where they will be at much greater risk of catching COVID-19.

HCBS funding is desperately needed to ensure we can stay safe in our own homes. The House included funding for HCBS in the HEROES and HEROES 2 Acts. It is critical that this funding be included in the final Congressional package.

I also ask that you oppose efforts to shield businesses from liability for harm they cause related to COVID-19. This threatens the rights and safety of disabled people.

Thank you for your time, and I hope I can count on you to protect your disabled constituents during the COVID-19 pandemic.

(Your name)

COVID-Relief-Skinny-Bill-Call-To-ActionDownload

October 14, 2020 Press Release: ADAPT Protests Around The Country Re: SCOTUS Hearings In DC

For Immediate Release
For Information Contact:
Ami Hyten (DC) (785) 220-6460
Jodie Baney (Williamsport) (570) 477-0777
Latoya Chivon(Philadelphia) (267) 815-2050
Rhoda Gibson (Boston) (617) 504-1792
Heiwa Salovitz (Austin) (512)966-3666 & Sophia Donnelly (512)924-8449

ADAPT Protests Around The Country Re: SCOTUS Hearings In DC

Washington, DC—-ADAPT is in Washington, DC, again this week as part of a coalition of civil rights groups in opposition to the Republican attempts to ram through Congress the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court of the United States. In addition, several local ADAPT chapters will be staging local actions in opposition to a Barrett confirmation that threatens the Affordable Care Act (ACA) protections for people with pre-existing conditions.

Should Barrett be confirmed, the rights of women and the LGBTQIA+ community will be at risk, along with the health care that millions of Americans gained under the ACA. Opposition to Barrett’s appointment is based on her published positions and opinions in all of these areas and more.

Local ADAPT actions include one on Wednesday, October 14, in Austin, Texas, where ADAPT and allies will gather outside the offices of Sen. John Cornyn, 221 6th Street W., from 11 am to 2 pm to demand that the senator value the lives of disabled people, and vote no on Judge Barrett.

“According to the United States Health and Human Services Department, half of all Americans have a pre-existing condition of some kind,” said Texas ADAPT organizer Heiwa Salovitz. “ Everyone knows someone who is impacted by the issue. Before the legal protection of the ACA, insurance companies were allowed to deny people with disabilities and pre-existing conditions life saving and life sustaining coverage.”

In Boston, Mass ADAPT will protest in front of their statehouse from 12 noon to 2pm, demanding their Senators vote not to confirm Barrett.

In Philadelphia, ADAPT will demand a no vote on Barrett because she is a distinct threat to the ACA and the over 8 million people who have contracted the virus, and who will now be identified as having a pre-existing condition. ADAPT will also highlight the unconscionable 85,000+ deaths of disabled people from Covid-19, a number that would have been much smaller if Congress supported home and community based services over institutional settings.

In Williamsport, North Central Pennsylvania, ADAPT will spend the day at the federal building, again demanding a no vote on Barrett, and pressing for the continuation of the Affordable Care Act. The ACA covers people with lower incomes, pre-existing conditions, and it created the Community First Choice program that makes it easier for states to support aging and disabled people in their own homes, instead of forcing them into institutional settings where Covid-19 has killed so many.

In the nation’s capitol groups protesting with ADAPT outside the Capitol during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings include the Women’s March, Housing Works, the Center for Popular Democracy, Planned Parenthood Action Fund, and local groups like SPACEs in Action, and Sunrise Movement, DC. Two ADAPTers were among those arrested at the sit-in outside the Capitol on Monday.

NationalADAPT.org @RealNatlADAPT on Twitter & Instagram, ADAPT National on Facebook and TikTok, National ADAPT on YouTube
ADAPTnational@gmail.com
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Open Letter To The Presidential Campaigns

ADAPT is a national grass-roots community that organizes disability rights activists to engage in nonviolent direct action, including civil disobedience, to assure the civil and human rights of people with disabilities to live in freedom. Formed by a collective of local ADAPT Chapters, National ADAPT has worked for the past 30 years to promote community living for aging and disabled people through reform of the long term service and support system. The undersigned represent the collective that constitutes ADAPT, as distinguished from other smaller, unofficial organizations representing themselves and their smaller, discrete groups and specific interests.

Current systems reinforce a “bias” in long term services and supports; Medicaid automatically pays for institutional placement. States have to build a parallel long term services and supports system to allow people to remain in their own homes and communities. Housing development has not kept pace with the need for accessible, usable units for people with disabilities. Wages and benefits for workers in homes are unequal to those offered to workers in facilities. Equipment as simple as shower benches or as essential as wheelchairs require users to navigate complicated payment and authorization systems. 

The situation aging and disabled people have confronted with COVID-19 has exposed how the biases in our current system mean death to us. COVID-19 has pointed to an imperative to shore up existing long term services and support systems and community resources to keep out of and deliver from aging and disabled people from institutional settings. ADAPT activists are looking for Presidential leadership through aggressive and explicit immediate plans to address gaps in the current system for aging and disabled people that result in unnecessary institutionalization and create barriers for returning to the community. 

National recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic will offer the opportunity and the imperative to re-build the long term services and supports system. We will have the opportunity to evaluate the gaps in the past system that placed aging and disabled people squarely at the center of the tempest. We will be able to clearly identify how systemic racism has meant that Black, Indigenous and People of Color suffered higher rates of exposure, infection, and death. We will value housing that offers safe harbor and security as we are able to control who comes in and out of our homes. As more people learn the reality of living with disability, we will place more value on physical and programmatic access in all areas of community life. 

As we have for the past 30 years, ADAPT looks to the next Presidential Administration to lead the way toward building communities that support and fully include aging and disabled people. ADAPT challenges all systems and policymakers to promote community integration and aggressively dismantle the system of institutional bias that segregates, isolates, and discriminates against people with all types of disabilities, and compounds the discrimination and exclusion of disabled Black, Indigenous and People of Color. We have long embraced the reality that change does not happen in the absence of demand; social and political progress requires relentless advocacy and activism. ADAPT expects public servants and elected officials to share our commitment to the following and we look to the campaigns to provide concrete plans for moving these issues of our rights, our well-being, and our lives forward that include: 

Ending the Institutional Bias in health care and long term services and supports

Money Follows the Person as a permanent program

Housing – stabilizing affordability and expanding accessibility for integrated housing

COVID-19 Home and Community Based Services (HCBS) Funding

Direct Support Workforce wages, benefits, recruitment and retention for self-directing aging and disabled people using community-based long term services and supports

Implementation of policies that keep people from going into institutions, rehabilitation facilities, group homes, state hospitals, detention and carceral centers, and any other type of congregate setting.

FREE OUR PEOPLE,

Arizona ADAPT Florida ADAPT
Philadelphia ADAPT South Carolina ADAPT
Kansas ADAPT Southwest Pennsylvania ADAPT
Massachusetts ADAPT ADAPT of Texas
Montana ADAPT Desert ADAPT
ADAPT of Erie, Pennsylvania D.C. Metro ADAPT
North Central Pennsylvania ADAPT Washington ADAPT
Central Pennsylvania ADAPT Wisconsin ADAPT
Capitol Region ADAPT, NY Downstate NY ADAPT
ROC ADAPT, NY

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

OPEN-LETTER-TO-THE-PRESIDENTIAL-CAMPAIGNS-finalDownload

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 Statement on 30th Anniversary of the ADA

The passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was a watershed event in the history of disability rights. In the weeks leading up to its passage, members of ADAPT used the power of our collective strength and organizing to help push it across the finish line. ADAPT acted out the injustices facing disabled people by crawling up the stairs to the Capitol building.

When the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed, it was meant to make our communities inclusive of all people. We expected the ADA to make accessibility available in all kinds of buildings. We expected the ADA to encourage service providers to make their programs open for all people. We expected the ADA to enable us to move freely in our communities. We expected the ADA to clear a path so we could work, play, and live with non-disabled neighbors, friends, and family members.

Since the signing of the ADA 30 years ago, the law has helped many people get jobs, move around in our communities, go to stores and use services, communicate, and participate in community life. On this 30th Anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act, we honor and thank those who came before us in the fight for disability rights.

30 years after the signing of the ADA, too many disabled people still live behind the walls of institutions. Too many disabled people are sent to state hospitals. Too many disabled people sit in prisons, jails, and detention centers. And now, in the shadow of global pandemic, too many disabled people are forgotten and dying in institutions. 

On this 30th Anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act, we commit ourselves to push forward with calls for disability justice. We embrace a more inclusive, more intersectional vision of our integration. We press forward on the unrealized vision that has left thousands of disabled people in institutions and invite well funded disability rights and justice organizations to join us by committing in word and actions.

Today, as it was 30 years ago and before, National ADAPT calls out to FREE OUR PEOPLE.