May 10, 1998
Contact: Michael Auberger (901) 528-1800, Room M-4
Jennifer Burnett (901) 522-9700, Room 611
ADAPT names Tennessee FIRST Worst
83% of the residents in American nursing homes are women according to the
Health Care Financing Administration. On this Mother's Day, 500 members
of ADAPT gathered in Court Square to hear national organizer Mike
Auberger name Tennessee as the nation's worst state for directing public
dollars into nursing homes and institutions instead of communities.
Deborah
Cunningham, Director of Memphis Center for Independent Living, accepted
the award on behalf of Tennessee and promised to take it to the governor.
Tennessee was followed by Mississippi, Louisiana, Missouri, Georgia,
Illinois, Indiana, Florida, Ohio, and Kentucky to complete the list of
the nation's ten worst states.
Speakers at the rally included Charles Hall of Tennessee People First
which sued the state to close institutions for persons with developmental
disabilities. Hall was joined by Mary Stockley of the AARP, and LaTonya
Reeve, formerly of Memphis, who said, "I'm ashamed to say that I'm from
Tennessee. I had to leave the city of Memphis and move to Denver to get
attendant services."
Following the rally in Court Square, 200 of the ADAPT activists stood
vigil along McElmore Street across from the Kings Daughters and Sons Home
which is a nursing home almost entirely of younger persons with
disabilities. Backed by chants of "Can you hear us, on the inside?" and
"Free Our People, Now!", 2 ADAPT members laid flowers at the entrance of
the nursing home. "We wanted our brothers and sisters who are still being
warehoused in nursing homes to know that those of us on the outside
continue to fight for their freedom and their right to choose where they
live," said Dawn Russell of Memphis.
ADAPT, a national disability rights organization, is in Memphis this
week for four days of demonstrations in protest of Tennessee and
America's very poor commitment to REAL choice in long-term services.
Since 1990 ADAPT has been working to change the institutional bias in our
long term care system. The cornerstone of ADAPT's REAL Choice campaign
for home and community based services is MiCASA, the Medicaid Community
Attendant Services Act of 1997. Introduced by Speaker Newt Gingrich, the
legislation has 63 co-sponsors in the House including Tennessee
Congressmen Harold Ford and Bob Clement. MiCASA would give people REAL
Choice, by allowing resources that now pay for them to live in a
nursing home or other institution to be used where they choose-their own
home in their own community. "I have never met anyone who wanted to live
in a nursing home," stated Deborah Cunningham.
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FOR MORE INFORMATION on ADAPT Please visit our website at http://www.adapt.org/
For direct inquiries regarding this press release please use the contact information at the beginning of this message or Email adaptpr(AT)adapt.org
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