ADAPT

September 16, 2005
For more information, contact:
Bob Kafka (512) 431-4085
Marsha Katz (406) 544-9504

ADAPT to Congress:  Fix the Problem!

People with Disabilities Devastated by Katrina While Katrina Also Devastates National Resources for All Persons with Disabilities

Who: ADAPT, the nation’s largest activist grassroots disability rights organization.

What: Press Conference.

When: Monday, September, 19, 2005 11 a.m.

Where: Holiday Inn Capitol, 550 C Street SW, corner of 6th; attached to the FEMA Headquarters, in the Discovery I and Discovery II meeting rooms.

Why: People with disabilities, who comprise 20% of the general population, comprised 25%-30% of those affected by Hurricane Katrina, according to the U.S. Census. It is likely they will comprise an even higher percentage of the fatalities. Many of those who survived remain uncounted and unregistered with FEMA because they were shipped to nursing homes, hospitals and other institutions all over the country where there are no FEMA Super Service Centers. Katrina exposed the lack of experience of FEMA and the Red Cross in dealing with the needs of persons with disabilities in disaster situations.

“We understand why people with disabilities were evacuated without their wheelchairs, service animals, and caretakers,” said Mark Johnson, ADAPT Organizer in Georgia. “In an emergency, you do whatever you have to do to get the most people out in the quickest way possible. But now that we are past that first response, FEMA and the Red Cross need to work with the disability community to assure that the needs of people with disabilities are met comprehensively, and that they don’t languish in those institutional settings for years to come. The first order of business is an accounting of where all the people with disabilities ended up, and what their needs are now.” 

In an effort to assist the thousands of people left homeless in the wake of Katrina, low income and HUD subsidized housing has been made immediately available. Ironically, thousands of poor people with disabilities have been waiting for this housing for up to ten years. There is promising legislation in Congress to provide Medicaid Waivers for people with disabilities affected by Katrina. If passed, that legislation would help address the return to community for those people who were sent to institutional settings, but it is not known whether those waiver “slots” would reduce the number of “slots” available in the individual states. Again, people with disabilities across the country have been waiting those “slots,” some for many years. 

“Katrina created a visible emergency that represents only the tip of the iceberg of the invisible emergency of poverty and disability services,” said Stephanie Thomas, National ADAPT Organizer. “The whole disability services and supports system needs fixing, for Katrina survivors and for all Americans with disabilities. Disabled people should not always come last.”

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