For Immediate Release:
September 9, 2006
For Information Contact:
Bob Kafka 512-431-4085
Marsha Katz 406-544-9504
National Hearing Testimony Should Convince States to Apply for MFP Funds
Washington, D.C. --- Recently passed federal legislation provides states with extra funds to move people with disabilities and older persons out of nursing homes, and back into their own homes in the community. Any states left wondering whether or not to take advantage of this federal initiative, known as "Money Follows the Person," (MFP), need only review testimony from the just-released transcript of the National Hearing on Ending Institutional Bias in Long-Term Services and Supports.
"I don"t know how anyone can read story after story of the 70 people who testified, and not be moved to do whatever it takes to give people a choice in where they live and receive their long-term services and supports," said National ADAPT Organizer Stephanie Thomas. "Michael Taylor, from Memphis, desperately wanted out of the nursing home had been forced into, but had to have someone else read his statement because the nursing home refused to let him come to the hearing to speak for himself."
In March 2006, in a virtually unprecedented national forum sponsored by ADAPT, officials from the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the National Council on Disability (NCD), the National Council on Independent Living (NCIL), the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD), ADAWatch, and the National Disability Rights Network
(NDRN) heard the testimony of people from all over the country who have lived through the indignities, and even horrors, of institutionalization. Samuel Mitchell, an ordained minister and former truck driver who became disabled, testified, "I had a ministry to nursing homes. I went in nursing homes and preached. I thought I knew a little bit about them.
After becoming disabled, a year later I suffered a stroke. That's when I entered a nursing home, and I found out just how much I didn't know about nursing homes. The prevailing atmosphere in nursing homes is that we now own you. You become a non-person. Your rights, human rights and civil rights are routinely violated. Dignity, there was no dignity. I can remember sitting using the rest room and having a CNA come in the door and start washing something out, and I told her 'you can't be in here.' She said, 'I'm going to only be a minute, don't worry, Mr. Mitchell.'" Mitchell eventually left the nursing home, and is now an ADAPT Organizer in Georgia, married and living in his own home,.
"I call nursing homes death camps," testified a Philadelphia woman known as Spitfire." I am Jewish, I qualify. What they did to me? Stage 4 bedsores, rape and torture sound familiar? But I live independently now. I was rescued by a friendly visitor with an ADAPT T-shirt. I love living on my own. I'm a good cook. I do my own ADLs. I know when to go to sleep. I'm not going to be raped at night. I know I won't have bed sores. I have a wonderful attendant."
Daniel Remick told the national hearing panel, "I am 58 years old. I was institutionalized at 8 and a half. My rights were taken away from me because of my disability. My mom and dad were told that I would never be able to live on my own because I did not have physical ability to do normal activity. Which [it] was a lie. I was sexually assaulted by an aide there."
Teresa Grove from Illinois said, "I am emotionally and mentally disabled. I've been in an institution since I was 14 years old. I was initiated in an institution by all the girls with a broom handle. I was told by a staff person and a security guard that I was whining and I should be quiet and grow up. [Now] I live in the community, but I live under an ongoing threat of one more admission anywhere, and I will be placed forever in a nursing home. Thank you."
States have until November 1, 2006, to submit applications for the additional federal funds to help them re-balance their long-term services and supports funding away from institutions and toward community-based alternatives. The full transcript from the National Hearing on Ending Institutional Bias in Long-Term Services and Supports, held in Nashville, Tennessee, March 19, 2006 can be found at
