ADAPT Blogswarm, Day 2 -- Press Release and DUH City Times Issue 1

Media Advisory:
Monday, September 15, 2008

For Information Contact:
Randy Alexander (901) 359-4982
Marsha Katz (406) 544-9504
www.adapt.org

ADAPT Fights Back re: Nation's Low Income People with Disabilities Left Behind in Election Year Agendas

Who: ADAPT Community (500 disability rights activists from all over the country.) ADAPT is the nation's largest cross-disability grassroots disability rights organization.

What: News conference to announce opening of DUH City.

When: 10 a.m. on Monday, September 15, 2008

Where: The plaza outside the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, 451 7th Street S.W., Washington, DC 20410

Why: The 2008 election campaigns have included rhetoric about tax breaks for middle income families, and media coverage has included stories about families who have children with disabilities.

Left out of all the election rhetoric are the candidates' positions on and commitments to those babies with disabilities who grow into adults with disabilities who all-too-often survive on extremely low incomes (less than 30% of the median income). These extremely low incomes are often the fixed benefit amounts of SSI and Social Security.

In 2006, according to Priced Out in 2006, the federal SSI benefit was $603/month and the average cost nationally of renting a studio/efficiency apartment was $633/month.

There are not enough AFFORDABLE, ACCESSIBLE, INTEGRATED housing units to handle the current demand in communities across America. When the Community Choice Act (S 799, H.R. 1621) passes, and older and disabled people can choose to live in their own homes instead of being forced into nursing homes and other institutions, the need for affordable, accessible housing will increase. And as the baby-boomers continue to age, the demand will grow exponentially.

HUD, Congress and the Administration have broken promises, cut funding for housing stock and housing subsidies and enforcement of anti-discrimination housing laws, and simply ignored the nation's low-income people with disabilities altogether.

ADAPT has established "DUH City" (reverse of HUD) to bring attention to and document the struggle of low income people with disabilities. When the average rent for even an efficiency apartment is more than your monthly income……where do you wind up? All too often you're forced out on the street or into a nursing home or other institution. DUH!

ADAPT's tent city will be typical community complete with its own newspaper, TV coverage, and other services.




Duh City Times - First Edition - September 15, 2008

Announcing the founding of duh city By: Jerry Costley

Solidarity! The Oxford Dictionary defines this oft used term as " noun: Unity resulting from common interests, feelings, or sympathies."

How do we gain those feelings or sympathies for others? One way is to experience or participate in the privations or hardships experienced by others.

Solidarity in Unions is gained by joining the picket lines, some snow, wind, rain or blazing heat. Want solidarity with the starving millions of the world? Try skipping a few meals and donating the savings.

ADAPT (American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today) in solidarity with our brothers and sisters who are languishing in nursing homes and whom are in fact homeless have decided to likewise render ourselves homeless through the creation of DUH city—a homeless tent city. Established in the shadows of the Housing and Urban Development Offices and built on a foundation of HUDs broken promised (see the following articles), we expect that DUH city will highlight the plight of nursing home inmates—why we consider those in nursing-so-called homes homeless, what HUD has failed to do about this and what they can do about it.

Along with the founding of DUH city we are proud to announce the establishment of the DUH City times. Published daily throughout our protest we will provide background information on the incarceration of thousands of our brothers and sisters in nursing homes for the crime of having a disability. We will also provide updates on our daily protests. We hope this newspaper will go beyond enlightening and will serve as a call to action to Congress and all who care about individual freedom and dignity.


Define People in Nursing Homes as Homeless By: Darrell Price

We recognize that institutions such as nursing homes are not "homes" at all; no more than any non-disabled person would consider a homeless shelter or a hospital bed a home.

Just as homeless shelters and "double up" housing are not real housing options for people who do not have their own residence, nursing homes and institutions are not real housing options for people with disabilities. Just like people in shelters, people in nursing homes do not have control over their own lives. Staff in institutions dictate every aspect of the lives of people with disabilities who are trapped in institutions. They dictate when people wake up, when and what they eat, and where they must spend their time during the day. Like people in homeless shelters, people in institutions have little or no privacy. Just like people in shelters experience abuse and neglect, people with disabilities experience abuse and neglect by the same staff that is supposed to "care" for them. People who are homeless and people in nursing homes are kept in the same basic struggle because of all these conditions. Due to lack of support and control over their own lives, these situations continue to perpetuate social and economic injustice.

The basic solution for all these groups is similar; a permanent, affordable residence that is fully integrated into the community. The current service system must be reformed to provide people with disabilities affordable, accessible integrated housing with services that are controlled by the people who use them and follow them to the setting of their choice.

Defining people in institutions as homeless is a critical part in making this goal a reality on the local, state, and national level. It will help insure that government agencies and other service providers for people with disabilities meet their moral and legal obligation to provide community base housing and support services. For example since 1998, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has issued regulations and guidance which states that "the housing needs of people with disabilities are not met by beds in nursing homes and other service center facilities, but this is not enforced. Contrary HUD regulations housing needs assessments often fail to include people in institutions, so this need is rarely planned for or met in most communities across the country.
By keeping us in nursing homes and other segregated institutions you are destroying the lives of thousands of people with disabilities for the financial benefit of a few.


Daniel's Story By: Mike McCracken

Daniel P considers himself a homeless man living in a nursing home. He shares the room with 3 other interchangeable men, interchangeable because occasionally one roommate will pass away. The emotional toll of having a roommate die makes developing deep friendships almost impossible.

Daniel is 54 years old, and has been in this facility for over 2 years. He came due to a bout of liver failure and has been kept there due to family pressure and a severe lack of affordable housing. His family fears he cannot take care of himself in the community, and housing—well he is on housing lists.

Whenever anyone asks him he tells them he feels imprisoned. The occasional trip to a store with his sister or an outing with other facility inhabitants only increases his desire to be back in the community. A shopping trip to Wal-Mart or a visit to a doctor is exciting. Everything is exciting when you are usually confined to a nursing home.

Like most, Daniel has made mistakes in his life, but not large ones. He has never hurt anyone and is among the first volunteer to help whenever asked. Certainly, he has never done anything worthy of an indeterminate nursing home incarceration. He has done everything his family and doctor has asked in order to get out. Grudgingly, with some advocacy from a local Nursing Home Transition coordinator, the family and doctor are willing to "let him" go back into the community.

But there is no available housing which is affordable and accessible. Daniel cannot climb more than a few stairs and has trouble with stamina. His only income is from SSDI and, although substantially more than SSI, it is still not enough to rent a reasonable apartment.

Daniel has applied at the local housing authority and several local Section 8 apartment complexes. He cannot apply for a Section 8 voucher as that list is closed right now and even if he could the waiting list is many years long.
Daniel watches TV waiting for that letter which will give him back his freedom. A simple letter saying he is being offered an apartment, a home- his home and his life. A letter that never comes.


ADAPTers Speak Out on Housing By: Amber Smock

Affordable, accessible, integrated housing is a critical concern to ADAPTers and all people with disabilities across the nation. Many of us have fought for basic access for decades, and we're still being hamstrung by the terrible lack of housing for our people.

Dale Reid, Denver ADAPTer and administrator for the Home Health Agency at the Atlantis Community, said that the lack of housing is basically keeping people jailed in nursing homes in Colorado. Dale said, "In Colorado, 3,800 people who live in nursing homes and institutions have testified that they want to get out. But at Atlantis, we are only able to free one or two people per month. We could be doing a lot more, but we can't because we don't have affordable, accessible, integrated housing."

Lack of housing for people with disabilities also prevents us from building real communities. Tamara Wulle of Salt Lake City ADAPT said, "I think accessible housing should be important to a lot of people. I want to be able to have my friends come visit me and my mother has a disability. It's important to be in an accessible home. also, most of my friends have babies and children so visitable and accessible housing helps everybody."

Folks with disabilities are also familiar with business owners who don't make their businesses accessible because they say, "We never have disabled people in here." Doris J. King of Salt Lake City ADAPT notes that affordable, accessible, integrated housing allows people with disabilities to get around, go into stores and spend money. She said, "If people were living in the community, they could get to stores and store owners would HAVE to make things accessible."

Doris also made a great point about community when she talked about access to her neighbors' homes. "I've lived in my house for seven years," she said. "I don't know my neighbors because they have one step up at the front and I can't get up to their door."

Toby Tyler of Wisconsin ADAPT pointed out that in our struggle for housing, there is a big problem with nursing home lobbyists giving big contributions to political campaigns. He said, "Politicians need to stop taking contributions from the nursing home lobbyists. Living in an apartment or house is 100% better than living in a nursing home, because nobody wants to live in a nursing home. These lobbyists don't care about people."

Toby also said that we need to see all politicians talking about disability rights issues in their campaigns across America.

The fight for affordable, accessible, integrated housing is everywhere, from small towns to the legislative offices of our nation's capital. It's not some problem "other people" have. It's a real problem that affects real people, like YOU.

Doing the Math…
Why We Need Affordable, Accessible, Integrated Housing
By Marsha Katz

There are more than 4 million adults with disabilities under age 65 who live below the poverty line. This represents over 28% of adults with disabilities under age 65.

The 2006 poverty rate for adults with disabilities is nearly three times greater than the poverty rate for adults without disabilities (25.3% vs. 9.2%).

In 2006, the $633 national average rent for studio/efficiency apartments was more than the entire $603 monthly SSI check received by low income persons with disabilities and intended to cover all their living expenses.
In 1998 SSI payments represented about 24.4% of the national median income. By 2006 the value of an SSI check dropped to only 18.2% of the national median income, and 25% below the federal poverty level.

Adults with disabilities comprise well over half of the people with low incomes (under 200% of the poverty level) who reported significant hardships (couldn't pay rent/mortgage, food insecurity and hunger, didn't get needed medical/dental care) in 1998.


The ADAPT Community By: Tim Wheat

ADAPT is a national grass-roots disability rights group.

We work for equality and positive change in policy and programs to include people with disabilities in American society.

The main goal of ADAPT is to end the institutional bias in Medicaid that forces people with disabilities from their home and families into expensive institutions and nursing homes.

ADAPT proposes legislation, advises decision-makers and suggests constructive solutions on local, state and national levels. ADAPT believes in action. Like classic civil rights struggles, we may use nonviolent civil disobedience.

Most importantly, ADAPT members have helped thousands of people with disabilities live in their own homes with their own families instead of being locked away in undesirable institutions.

Do you want to live in a nursing home?