Community Choice It’s A Civil Right
ADAPT heads to Atlanta this October 10 -15, 2009 to continue our fight for the right to chose community services and supports.
This year is the 10th Anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Olmstead v LC and EW decision. This groundbreaking case began in Georgia; a decade later that state is still under a voluntary compliance agreement with the Department of Health and Human Services to bring their state services in line with the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504, respectively 19 and 36 year old civil rights laws.
Lois Curtis, LC, lives in Georgia -- in the community now. Yet GA disability rights activists annually stage their Long Walk Home to highlight the large number of state institutions still operating at full capacity.
Georgia was in the vanguard of the civil rights movement in the 60s. This movement helped inspire, among other movements, the disability rights movement of today. The King Center honoring Dr. King and civil rights movement is in Atlanta, yet right across the street – a nursing home.
The oppression of people warehoused in institutions or threatened with institutionalization remains a reality. Georgia is just one of a growing number of states drastically cutting community services, while nursing homes and other institutions remain the federally mandated preference for “our kind.”
No matter what happens in DC with Health Care Reform, the Community Choice Act or similar legislation, states will be left to implement this legislation and policy. And we will be left to ensure our civil rights will finally be realized.Join ADAPT activists from all over the nation in our fight for the right to chose community and to FREE OUR PEOPLE.
