Here is a newspaper article about the regional action that we did yesterday. ADAPT members from DC, DE, MD, PA, TX, and VA attended. I was energized by seeing my friends and being on the front lines, and in the thick of things. As you will see from the article, the action was a success!
Disabled seek bishops’ support for community living law
By Jerry Filteau
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON (CNS) — More than 30 people in wheelchairs occupied the lobby of
the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for an hour July 27 in an effort to
get USCCB backing for a federal law that would help many people with
disabilities live in their communities instead of in nursing homes.
The demonstrators were members of Adapt, a national organization that fights
for disability rights.
After demonstrating for an hour and meeting briefly with top USCCB
officials, who agreed to a follow-up meeting, the group left.
Cassie James of Philadelphia, who led the group in several chants, told
Catholic News Service that Adapt “is fighting for real choice” for many
people with disabilities who would be able to leave nursing homes if
Medicare and Medicaid funding were not biased in favor of the
institutionalization of those with disabilities.
The group was seeking support for the Medicaid Community-based Attendant
Services and Support Act, which the demonstrators referred to by the
shortened name MiCASSA. The bill has been introduced in both houses of Congress.
“It’s time for change, not charity,” James said.
She led the group in a back-and-forth chant:
“What do we want?”
“We want MiCASSA!”
“When do we want it?”
“We want it now!”
She also led them in a chant, “Our homes, not nursing homes!”
Kathleen Kleinmann, who has muscular dystrophy, told CNS she worked for
Catholic Charities of the Pittsburgh Diocese as its Washington County
director in 1986-87 but left to start her own nonprofit center for
independent living there. The center “is now a $6 million operation,” she said.
Compared with nursing home care, “giving the basic services needed (for
people with disabilities to live independently) is not expensive, but it is
essential,” she said. “The church could be in the forefront.”
She said Adapt was formed in 1982 to campaign for wheelchair access on
buses. When it won that fight in 1990, it turned to the independent living
issue. But she said the Catholic Church has not been giving that issue “the
kind of response we think it deserves.”
Philadelphian Eileen Sabel, who said her friends call her “Spitfire,”
described nursing homes as “death camps.”
The demonstrators began gathering in the lobby of the bishops’ national
headquarters shortly before 1 p.m. Promptly at 1 p.m. they began singing
“Amazing Grace” followed by chants for MiCASSA, for “change, not charity”
and for “justice, not charity.”
About 1:40 p.m. Msgr. David J. Malloy, USCCB general secretary, and Nancy
Wisdo, USCCB associate general secretary, came in to meet with the group.
Accompanying them were Msgr. Francis J. Maniscalco, USCCB secretary for
communications, and Janice LaLonde Benton, executive director of the
National Catholic Partnership on Disability, whose offices are next door to
USCCB headquarters.
They listened as James and others described the concerns they wanted
addressed and what they described as a lack of responsiveness from Catholic
officials on the MiCASSA legislation, on which the USCCB has not taken a
position. A couple of speakers also complained about the lack of
handicap-accessibility in some Catholic churches.
Wisdo volunteered to set up a time to discuss the issues more fully, saying
she would also like to include the Catholic disability office and the
Catholic Health Association in the discussion.
Benton, who has been with the Catholic disability agency since it was formed
in 1982, said she would like to work with Adapt and assist it in getting the
voices of the disabled heard more widely.
Msgr. Maniscalco told CNS later the demonstrators he talked with seemed to
share a spirit of good will summarized by one woman who told him, “This
demonstration is kind of a compliment to you because we think you can really
make a difference on something like this.”
“They really were looking for the church to assist them in a matter that’s
extremely important to them,” he said.
During the demonstration Anita Cameron of Washington told CNS she grew up
Catholic and got interested in social justice through the church.
“The Catholic Church has a long, long history of social justice,” she said,
but she finds it “disheartening” that the church does not pay more attention
to the civil and human rights of those with disabilities. “We’re participating members of society, too.”
Michelle McCandless of Philadelphia said she has used a wheelchair since she
was run over by a catering truck two years ago. When asked if she was a
Catholic, she said she grew up Catholic and “I wear a Catholic cross, but I
go to a Baptist church because they’re accessible.”
Bob Kafka of Austin, Texas, a national organizer of Adapt, said there has
been a bias toward the institutionalization of the disabled in Medicare and
Medicaid since the programs were established in 1965.
When the money gets short, states cut back first on the community-based
programs that would free people with disabilities to stay out of nursing
homes, he said.
“It’s a civil rights issue,” he added.
