American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today
of Connecticut
Legislative Activity
Today, national ADAPT and ADAPT of Connecticut are working very hard to persuade and encourage Congress to pass the Community Choice Act of 2007 (CCA). CCA is legislation that would fund community-based attendant services and would also provide people with disabilities with other supports they need to participate fully in community life. The bills are currently moving through Congress as S 683 in the Senate and in the House - HR 1670.
ADAPT of Connecticut has been successful in convincing six of our Congressional representatives, Representative John Larson, Joe Courtney, Chris Murphy, Rosa DeLauro, and Senators Christopher Dodd and Joseph Lieberman, to sign on as co-sponsors of CCA, which has strong, bi-partisan support in Congress. Please call Congressman Chris Shay's office - 203-579-5870 to urge him to support HR 1621.
ADAPT of Connecticut
fought for years for accessibility. For example, ADAPT of Connecticut
made Mo’s Midtown Restaurant, a very popular Hartford breakfast spot,
become accessible. They had two doors to enter to get inside to a
table. The first door was accessible, but to get to the second door a
person needed to turn 90 degrees. A wheelchair was unable to turn 90
degrees in this tight space. So several ADAPT of Connecticut members
went Mo’s Midtown Restaurant on a Saturday morning, which is at the
height of business and also when the owner is there. We brought some
flyers and then to turn up the heat we put our wheelchairs in front of
the door. The police came and asked us to move to the sidewalk, which
we did. Every Saturday morning for six months a member of ADAPT of
Connecticut went to sit in front of that restaurant with a sign. One
day a call came into our office from Mo's Midtown Restaurant, saying
they wanted to make the doorway accessible. Now people with wheelchairs
can get into one more place!
The sledgehammer came smashing down on the concrete curb in front of Hartford's Union Place train station. The group gathered there had a single purpose: if public authorities would not provide easy access to the sidewalk for people in wheelchairs, they would make their own. So the wiry, middle-aged man continued to raise the hammer until the curb was demolished. Union Place would be accessible, one way or another. Now that sidewalk in Hartford is accessible.
Locally, ADAPT of
Connecticut has engaged in many direct actions. For example, we once
occupied the Hartford office of the United States Department of Health
and Human Services (HHS), leaving only when a message with our demands
for better access to attendant services was faxed to then-Secretary of
HHS Donna Shalala in Washington, D.C. Another time, members of our
local group chained ourselves to the wheels of Greyhound buses to
protest that company's policy of refusing to transport motorized
wheelchairs. Almost a dozen men and women -- mostly in wheelchairs --
were arrested. We refused to accept bail and were eventually released
without charge because the court had no way to provide proper facilities
for us in jail.
ADAPT of Connecticut believes the disability community cannot give up. If we do not fight for the issues relating to us, no one else will. We must recognize that we have a voice, and we must use it.
Adapt in the News
Channel 8 News Story - September 20, 2006
NPR Morning Edition - September 15, 2006