Community Choice - It Is A Civil Right!
I can’t wait ’til Friday night! No, its not because of the weekend. That is when a busload of us from Rochester ADAPT will be headed to Atlanta, Georgia to fight to FREE OUR PEOPLE!!!
ADAPT has been to Atlanta before – the first time was in 1989, then, 1990, 1996, and we’ll be back October 10-15, 2009. I was there in ‘89 and ‘90, but missed ‘96 due to illness.
It is very important that we are going back to Georgia because it’s the Olmstead state. Olmstead is the 1999 Supreme Court decision that gives people with disabilities the right to live in the community. The Supreme Court ruled in its decision that unnecessary institutionalization is discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act. It stems from the case of Olmstead v. L.C. Two women living in a psychiatric institution in Georgia wanted to move into the community. Their doctors had determined that they were able to live on their own with supports, but the state of Georgia wouldn’t allow it. They sued, and the case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where they won a landmark victory. The result of the decision is that every state must devise (make) an Olmstead plan to transition (move) people with disabilities from institutional settings, like nursing homes, state schools, and psychiatric hospitals. Ten years later, many states still don’t have an Olmstead plan. Georgia, the Olmstead state, is one of them.
In fact, from 2002 – 2007, the rate of institutionalization in Georgia has increased from 11% to 14%. Of nearly 230,000 people with disabilities aged 5 -65 years, living in the community who need attendant services, only roughly 17% receive any such assistance. Our sisters and brothers in Georgia need our help badly!
I’ll be blogging from the action as part of the ADAPT Blogswarm at Nick’s Crusade. Read about it here. If you blog for disability rights, join us! We need to get the word out about what’s going on! In the current economic crisis, the very freedom of our people is threatened, so it is VERY important that we work hard to FREE OUR PEOPLE!!!
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