Oldest DRAC News

Barbara and Cindy in Lobby

Once again, members of DRAC ADAPT/Utah joined with over three hundred of our activists brothers and sisters with disabilities to fight for the freedom and dignity of those who have been condemned to indeterminate sentences in our country's nursing homes. However, this series of actions was a little different. There are probably a host of different opinions as to why this is so, but I believe it is that the good people of Washington, D. C. have come to know us. First, they know we mean business. We won't back down, certainly not at the threat of arrest. Second, they know we have staying power. Not cold, not wind, rain, snow or time can dampen our spirits or diminish the power of our message and the volume of our chants. Finally, they know that if they agree to our demands, in good faith, that we will be good to our word to disperse peacefully. Accordingly, when we first took over the lobby of the Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill, the first reaction of the hotel management was to demand that we be arrested. However, the DC police explained that arresting us would take a good four hours and that from their experience we would continue strong the entire time. Accordingly, when faced with the prospect of over four hours of chanting "We want Kaiser" and the noise of our hand-clappers, the The Public Housing Authorities Directors Association agreed to meet with ADAPT's leaders to discuss the need for local housing authorities to set aside housing vouchers for individuals who are attempting to move from nursing homes. This is a very real problem. Individuals with disabilities and their supporters may spend months pulling together the needed community resources and services. Then, when all is finally ready there is no housing! Months later the individual has worked her way up the housing waiting list, but the supports and services have fallen apart and there is only a month to pull them back together and find an affordable, accessible apartment. It's impossible, so we need the housing authorities to work with to insure needed housing will be waiting when the services are finally in place. This was a tremendous win for ADAPT!

Of course, we weren't through. The next day we headed off to the Capitol Hilton and a joint conference of the America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) and American Association of Health Plans (AHHP). More and more states have turned to Health Maintenance Organizations (HMO's) to handle their medical care, including Medicaid. Recently, the attention of the states and HMO's has turned to more cost efficient management of the state's long-term care systems. This was actually a preventative measure (read pre-emptive strike) to insure that any plans that are laid will support community attendant care, including decent wages for attendants such that constant turnover and gaps in services can be eliminated. Also on our list of demands was that the HMO's insure that persons with disabilities are put in charge of directing their own care, including determining, to a large extent, what is acceptable risk. While yesterday the doorman was kind enough to hold the door open for all 300+ of us, this time they were a little more savvy and soon attempted to block our way. However, some went around the hotel security and some almost went through. To the great frustration and despite the best efforts of the guard all of us got in. Once again, our chanting and "clappers" disrupted business as normal. Reacting to the tendency of service providers and insurance companies to view persons with disabilities as commodities or the source of their profits, some donned cow suits as we chanted "NO MORE CASH COWS!!!" and "We want Ignagni, (the President and CEO of America’s Health Insurance Plans). Once again, productive negotiations with our leaders ensued with agreement to continue these in future meetings. We got a real sense that the organizations are willing to work with us to plan and develop a long-term care system that both saves money over the current nursing home monopoly and that works for us. Two quick wins in two days.

Along the way, we dropped in on HUD just to remind secretary Alphonso Jackson that he hasn't kept his promise to send letters to the local public health authorities asking that they se Doris King leads the march

t aside vouchers. We intended for this to just be a "shot across the bow", but our leadership was quickly invited in and assured that Secretary Jackson would keep his word in short order. We were beginning to feel that we really did have clout and muscle. We were ready to take on the Republic National Committee (RNC), where a previous action lasted for hours while workers jumped out of second story windows rather than accede to our demands. This time we marched in a light drizzle. We understand that since the last action the staff and security of the RNC has been on high alert for any wheelchairs, but somehow we still caught them by surprise and jammed the lobby to overflowing. Ricki Landers, caught in the rain outside, asked a departing visitor for his umbrella, which he actually gave up. Our demands were simple--meet with our leadership to discuss supporting MiCASSA--the bill that will give true choice to persons with disabilities who need assistance--a choice between using funding for a nursing home stay or for community based attendants. We quickly got our meeting--actually before we even finished our meal of cold and soggy hamburgers and fries.

Throw in a commitment from the Catholic Bishops to support passage of MiCASSA and you have one successful action, without even the threat of an arrest. Life is good. ADAPT is powerful.

Of course, the next action is always the best one. Please plan to join us in March as we take off for parts unknown to take on enemies unknown in the known cause of FREE OUR PEOPLE!

Renee Baturin and her friend Shantih Cook protest

When Renee Baturin learned that her subsidized apartment in New York was being converted to Elderly only housing and that she would have to relocate, she decided to move to Utah. Her move was based in part on her desire to move closer to the headquarters of the LDS Church of which he is a member. Her move was also prompted by information she received from an advocacy group in New York who said they checked with Utah's Department of Health that we have good attendant care services for persons with physical disabilities. Believing that Utah has good or even adequate services for persons with disabilities can be a tragic mistake, as Renee found. Members of the Disabled Rights Action Committee rallied around Renee, helping with food and other supports. Other organizations, such as the Salt Lake ACT have helped her fill out paperwork and attempted to help her locate whatever services she could.

However, DRAC decided to take action as only we can. We protested at the Department of Health, not once, but twice, just a week apart, on Tuesday, August 15 and Monday, August 21. Both times we hit on the message that the waiting list for the physical disabilities waiver is so long that the only hope the Department of Health holds out for her to obtain needed attendant care is to take advantage of Utah's form of Money Follows the Person by moving into a nursing home for ninety days. While the Department of Health's attempt to provide a form of Money Follows the Person may be a noble attempt at helping people get out of nursing homes, in this case it has the perverse effect of setting nursing homes up as the only expedited gateway to needed community services. Renee currently has a nice apartment with pleasant furnishings and her best friend, Shantih Cook, who followed her from New York, all of which she risks losing in one form or another if she moves into a nursing home.

DRAC hit this message home during our protests--the state should not force persons with disabilities to run the gauntlet of nursing home incarceration and a loss of all they own in order to reach the other side of community services and supports. On our second week we handed out flyers profiling Renee's unusual plight and Death Certifications, noting that the Department of Health is indeed in the businesses of issuing death certificates, but they should not do so prematurely, forcing us into the living deaths of nursing homes.

The Department of Health didn't appreciate their effort at a "Money Follows the Person" program cast as forcing persons into nursing homes as the only realistic means of accessing needed community services and threatened to pull the effort, which is really a Memorandum of Understanding between the Department of Health and the Division of Services for People with Disabilities. However, in a later meeting with members of DRAC they agreed to continue with this effort, to include members of DRAC and other stakeholders in laying true plans for getting people out of nursing homes, and to explore efforts to get individuals like Renee into services without forcing them into a nursing home. They also agreed to look into the possibility of allowing more persons with developmental disabilities to move out of ICF-MR settings and to resolve the problem of backfilling into these facilities by closing beds down after individuals who move out--this has been raised as one possibility for rebalancing long-term care by the federal government as they have described possibilities for their Money Follows the Person initiative, which Utah has chosen not to take advantage of.

As for Renee, the Department of Health and Division of Services for People with Disabilities claim there is nothing they can do to hasten Renee's move off the waiting list, given the other 62 individuals with physical disabilities who are ahead of her, leaving Renee and DRAC to mull over any possible legal remedies. Stay tuned...

DRAC Joins AHAC in Fighting to Maintain Vision and Dental Services for Utah's Adults who Rely on Medicaid for their Health Needs

Go figure! DRAC and AHAC had decided to play nice this legislative session. We cooperatively met and planned with coalitions. We respectfully sat through long legislative meetings and gave respectful testimony when provided the opportunity. For a while, it seemed to be paying off. In a public meeting the Health and Human Services Appropriations Subcommittee voted to give vision and dental services for adults on Medicaid a moderate priority (10 for vision and 12 for dental) for ongoing funding and a high priority for one-time funding. Life was good and spectator democracy seemed to be working. We all headed for the Executive Appropriations Committee.

However, as the co-chairs of the Health and Human Services Subcommittee began their presentation, we got a nasty surprise. Somehow, a new directive of the Executive Appropriations Committee, reportedly sent out a month previous, hadn't made its way to the Health and Human Services Subcommittee. They had been told to bring just one integrated, prioritized list to the Executive Committee, and instead there they were, trying to present the two they had prepared two days previous, in the public meeting. Later that night, far from the public gaze, they worked in private to correct their very public mistake. Two lists became one and in the process Medicaid funding for vision and dental services was dropped--not just given a lower priority, not given less funding, but dropped. A public commitment to prioritize our needs had become a backroom back stabbing, or at least is sure felt that way.

DRAC Joins the NAACP and La Raza for a Press Conference regarding Summit County's Unfair Housing and Misinformation

January 10, 2006. For several years Utah has had an affordable housing law requiring each community to develop a plan for including affordable housing within its boundaries, based on the principle that each community should do its part in insuring a place for newly weds, elderly citizens and others on low and fixed incomes. These plans are then to be implemented. As always, some believe the laws and rules don't apply to them. Summit county has never written an affordable housing plan. From our perspective they have done just the opposite in creating zoning that requires twenty acres for each house. With such zoning there are very few apartments and condominiums and of these, even fewer comply with the requirements of the Federal Fair Housing Act, at least in terms of accessibility. Accordingly, when Anderson Development approached DRAC with a proposal that we join them in a lawsuit against Summit County in an attempt to get the County to amend their zoning ordinances to allow for more affordable housing, DRAC was agreeable. In fact, Anderson Development has committed to build several units our specifications for accessibility that otherwise wouldn't be required by law to be accessible. Affordable and accessible housing in one deal--it works for us.

DRAC joined forces with La Raza and the NAACP in this lawsuit, which was filed in the spring of 2005. Shortly after a press conference announcing the filing of the lawsuit Dave Thomas, the assistant county attorney announced that the County didn't really need to do an affordability plan because they had already identified over 1,800 affordable units. Mr. Thomas implied that all three of our non-profits had been duped and used by Anderson development to further a frivolous lawsuit that would only benefit the developers. Mr. Thomas said we hadn't done our homework and predicted that all non-profits who had affiliated themselves with this lawsuit would suffer a black eye.

DRAC takes these kinds of challenges to our reputation and integrity very seriously. We do our homework, and we don't sue anyone unnecessarily. Accordingly DRAC pushed for a GRAMA request to obtain the list of over 1800 purported affordable housing units. After some legal maneuvering we were finally able to obtain the list as it became part of the court record when Mr. Thomas entered it into the court record as part of a motion to dismiss our suit.

In an attempt to test some of these properties for accessibility we found that one of these supposedly affordable housing units costs $250,000 for purchase of a three month deed. The attorneys involved investigated further and found that the list included a vacant lot, an outdoor basketball court, small recreational cabins and time-share type facilities. In addition, Summit County miscalculated both the cost of an affordable dwelling as per Summit County standards, overstating the value by tens of thousands of dollars. When all was said and done there are between 300 and 400 homes from the list that are actually affordable and it appears that few if any of these are accessible.

DRAC members address the press in front of a vacant lot--
Summit County's idea of affordable housing

Apparently in accusing of us being easily duped by Anderson Development Mr. Thomas was only hoping we are easily fooled. However, in exposing the weakness of Mr. Thomas' claim that Summit County has affordable housing it is Mr. Thomas who has sustained the black eye to his reputation.

On January 10 DRAC and La Raza joined the attorneys involved in this lawsuit to expose the misinformation that Mr. Thomas has promulgated, even to the point of certifying to its accuracy as a court document. Summit County seems to continue to refuse to consider complying with the law. Instead, they imply that they are justified in refusing to provide affordable and accessible housing in Summit County because they don't like the developers and attorneys who are involved. This is a very weak argument for failing to follow the law or meet the needs of persons with disabilities and/or of limited income who would like to live in Summit county. DRAC and the other non-profits involved have been accused of allowing the developers and attorneys to use us to further their lawsuit.

This may well be the case, but it doesn't change the fact that Summit County has failed to follow the law and that there is very little to now affordable and accessible housing in Summit County. This lawsuit represents our best shot at rectifying this wrong. One way to look at this is that the developers are using DRAC and DRAC is using the developers. However, another way to view the situation is that the developers have some mutual interest in this matter. Yes, the developers and attorneys may get with a successful lawsuit. However, we will get affordable and accessible housing that we apparently can't get in any other way. Symbiosis--we meet each other's needs in a non-destructive manner. We stand by our participation in this lawsuit and will see this through until Summit County agrees to provide for affordable and accessible housing.