Hi Y'all
After two days of cold, wet and windburn faces, Wednesday gave us a break. With clear skies and a high of about 50, Wednesday with ADAPT was looking pretty comfortable.
Wednesday, instead of marching to our destination we were loading onto buses and transporting. With 400+ people and nearly half in wheelchairs, moving this group is no small accomplishment. We got no help from local paratransit - I'm sure you're all surprised. So we were left to our own devices. Several ADAPT chapters had large accessible vehicles and many people had their own vans.
Despite one bus that had space for 20 wheelchairs and two more buses for about 10, it still took three runs of ALL of the vehicles to get to where we were going. It was amazing to watch.
We took our group and unloaded in the parking lot of TennCare, the state's Medicaid program. Through TennCare, Governor Bredesen has cut 300,000 people off Medicaid and has forced people into institutions. Our group lined up and circled around the perimeter of the sidewalk. A group of Tennessee ADAPTers approached the front door to deliver a letter on behalf of the people in institutions that have asked to get out.
The media had been following us all morning so there were all over the group that approached the front door. ADAPT then burst into a chant of "6,700 want to get out". According to the most recent CMS data, 6700 people in nursing homes have said they want out (NY's number is nearly 20,000).
We then rolled our group onward to do a second action. About 1/2 away from TennCare is the local office of HUD - housing and urban development. We crowded onto the front patio/ sidewalk, chanting "affordable, accessible, integrated housing". The director of the office came down to talk with our group. We used this action as an opportunity to launch a nationwide campaign targeting Alfonso Jackson, the head of HUD.
After our time at HUD we made our way back to the hotel, still followed by the media. The great part of the day's media coverage was that the press really started to get it!
Chris
