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Home / Albums / Tag wheelchair bound 56
- ADAPT (816)
This Week in Healthcare Photo: Protesters in wheelchairs sit in a group chanting. Their signs read: "Is there a nursing home in your future?" and "Our Homes not Nursing Homes." Front row left to right is George Roberts with Larry Biondi and another person behind him, and Stephanie Thomas and Karen Tamley with signs. Caption reads: Wheelchair-bound members of ADAPT, a patient-advocacy group, disrupt AHCA’s meeting. Title: Disabled protest AHCA approach in lobbying for reform by John Burns [This article contines in ADAPT 815 but the entire text is included here for easier reading.] Nursing home providers weren’t the only ones recommending comprehensive long-term-care reform last week during the American Health Care Associations convention in Nashville, Tenn. More than 250 people, many of them disabled and wheelchair bound, demonstrated outside—and inside—the convention's Opryland Hotel headquarters to protest the AHCA’s lobbying of the Clinton administration for increased federal funding for nursing home care. The incident was the latest in a series of clashes between healthcare provider and consumer groups reacting to President Clinton's healthcare reform plan. Last month, the American Association of Retired Persons and Families USA, a consumer advocacy group, launched separate advertising campaigns attacking the lobbying efforts of several healthcare special-interest groups (See related story, p. 60). Early in the week, Paul Willging, AHCA’s executive vice president, outlined the associations agenda for reform to an audience of more than 2,000 nursing home administrators. More than 4,000 people attended last week's convention, the largest turnout in eight years. The group represents about 10,000 for-profit facilities. Mr. Willging commended the Clinton administration for the inclusion of steps in its reform plan to improve long-term-care financing. The plan calls for the creation of a long-term-care insurance market to help residents pay nursing home costs. “We've argued for years that the private sector offers an answer to escalating Medicaid spending... and to the forced impoverishment of millions of Americans due to their long-term-care needs,” Mr. Willging said. The AHCA’s platform for reform calls for a private-public partnership for long-term-care financing. Under their vision of coverage, private insurance would pay a large portion of nursing home costs, while the federal government would pay for the poor. However, eliminating the "imprisonment” - not impoverishment—of nursing home residents was the battle cry of hundreds of protesters from a group called Americans Disabled for Attendant Programs Today. The organization is a Denver-based patient advocacy group representing people with disabilities who would rather live at home than in nursing homes. Throughout the week, ADAPT members protested outside the Opryland Hotel, demanding that the group be allowed into the convention to debate its agenda. The group’s primary goal is to shift at least 25% of Medicaid spending now designated for nursing homes so the money could be used to develop home- and community-based long-term-care programs. The AHCA, which denied access to ADAPT members, did offer to meet with them in a closed-door session, said Claudia Askew, an AHCA spokeswoman. However, after talks broke down on Sept. 28, ADAPT protesters stormed the hotel, disrupting the convention and hotel traffic for hours. Nearly 100 ADAPT members were arrested. “We think we share a common goal of supporting additional funding for home-care services,” Ms. Askew said. “But, after today, I don’t know if we can come to any agreement.” This isn't the first time the association and ADAPT have clashed. Last year, ADAPT staged a similar protest during the AHCA’s convention in San Francisco, resulting in numerous protester arrests, she said. - ADAPT (252)
5-22-86 PHOTO (UPI): A thin man (Lonnie Smith) in a manual wheelchair grabs the vertical metal bars of the police barricade with his strong right hand. He is wearing a hoodie, jeans and sneakers and is looking down. Behind him you can see two uniformed police officers, and another man who has a button of some kind on his jacket. Caption reads: WHEELCHAIR BOUND Lonnie Smith of Denver holds onto a barricade as he and 17 other members of a national handicapped activist group are arrested Wednesday outside a conference of the American Public Transportation Association that has 600 transit officials from across the country in attendance. (UPI) - ADAPT (706)
Chicago Tribune Tuesday, May 12, 1992 Title: State thwarts protest, so disabled switch site By Rob Karwath A threatened demonstration by wheelchair-bound protesters prompted an unprecedented show of force Monday at the 16-floor glass-and-steel State of Illinois Center. The demonstrators instead targeted federal offices several blocks south, leaving 3,000 state workers walking along barricaded corridors and past security checkpoints in the building at 100 W. Randolph St. Workers had to tell uniformed police where they were going. Security guards manned the elevators. A trip from an upper floor to a main-floor coffee shop became a half-hour journey. The preparations were made for a group that has become increasingly militant, with members at times chaining themselves to objects and forming chains of wheelchairs. After experiencing a day of the clampdown, most employees interviewed said they thought the state Department of Central Management Services, which runs the building, has overreacted. “It's ridiculous," said Peggy Craddieth, a secretary at the Illinois Pollution Control Board. “Even during Operation Desert Storm they weren’t this tight.” State officials said the tight security will continue all week, or at least until the protesters from Americans Disabled for Attendant Programs Today (ADAPT) leave town. The heavy security seemed out of place to those familiar with the idea behind the wide—open state building. Architect Helmut Jahn created the building to symbolize the openness of a properly run democracy. Jahn’s concept was former Gov. James Thompson's frequent retort to anyone who criticized the building as a poor use of space. “There’s a general discomfort all across the office about this,” said Rob Cushing, a lawyer in the lllinois attorney general‘s office. He said of the demonstrators, “We shouldn't have to go through all of this to deny them their right to protest.” Central Management Services officials said they never intended to create a problem with the extra security, which included calling all department police in on their days off and hiring l6 private security guards at a cost of about $2,000 a day. Instead, department spokeswoman Helen Adorjan said the state was simply trying to keep the building open after receiving a call from ADAPT warning that the group might try to block doors and elevators at the building this week. The group is protesting what it believes to be a lack of government funds for programs that allow disabled people to live at home and avoid nursing homes. ADAPT did block doorways and elevators Monday in at least one Loop building where federal offices are housed. Diane Coleman, an organizer in ADAPT, said Monday that the group went to 105 W. Adams, the Bankers Building, because it houses one of the regional offices of the Department of Health and Human Services. “There have been movements by `groups` like this before, but they were neglecting civil rights tactics—taking it to the streets,” she said. “And we'll do it until we win this issue. Six times the money goes to nursing homes and other institutions than to home and community-based services. We want 25 percent of that nursing home budget to go to home care." Many State of Illinois building workers said they were concerned that everyone entering the building was barred from the Easement and first-floor elevators, which were roped of and guarded by Central Management Services police officers. Yellow and black paper signs directed workers and patrons to an escalator that took them to the second floor where they were allowed to board the elevators. The escalator guaranteed that any wheechair-bound protesters wouldn‘t make it beyond the ground level. But some state workers said they were concerned that wheelchair-bound employees and disabled people with state business had to specially request that an elevator descend to the first floor and then convince building police that they were not protesters. “ls it fair for someone who shows up in a wheelchair to have to declare their business?" asked Alex Des Chenes, a contractor with the state Department of Public Health. “Have you seen the tapes of what the have done in other cities?” Anforjan said. “This group completely immobilizes activity. They need to be able to express themselves, but we need to keep the building operating." But, in an effort to prevent a disruption, workers said all of the extra security only ended up causing a disruption. The building's Lake Street entrance was open, but a large steel gate inside the revolving glass doors sealed it off to all but riders of the CTA subway trains below. A newsstand and a Chinese restaurant located inside the entrance were empty as most of their customers were forced to bypass them. Even some of the Central Management Services police running the elevators said they disagreed with the security plan and would have tried less-disruptive measures. “Everybody’s complaining about this," said one officer, shaking his head as he punched elevator buttons. “It‘s crazy." Tribune photo by David Klobucar: A mass of people are clustered in one big not. ADAPT protesters in wheelchairs are on the street and people in suits and similar work outfits are making their way down the log jammed sidewalk, up to the police barricades. A woman in a dress is stepping over and through two of the protesters so she can continue in the street. Between the street and the sidewalk a metal police barricade is partially visible, and two uniformed officers appear to be casually trying to hold the barricades up. Caption reads: Protesters from Americans Disabled for Attendant Programs Today block an entrance to the U.S. Health and Human Services Department on West Adams Street Monday. - ADAPT (720)
Chicago Defender, Monday, May I I, 1992 Title: Sullivan speaks, get heckled at UIC by Dobie Holland Screaming slogans such as “You're killing us," a group of physically-disabled persons disrupted the commencement speech of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Dr. Louis W. Sullivan Sunday at the University of Illinois-Chicago. Security personnel removed the partially wheelchair-bound group from the UIC Pavilion and escorted them outside, where they joined 500 other protesters from 25 states who picketed outside during the ceremonies. John Gladstone, a Americans Disabled for Attendant Programs Today (ADAPT) member from Philadelphia, explained the group's militant tactics: “These are radical times. You can only write so many letters. l wrote so many letters to Mr. Sullivan that I had writer's cramp." ADAPT, a national Civil Rights agency, is concerned with Bush Administration policies that have resulted in widespread budget cuts in state Medicaid funding. The reductions, ADAPT members say, will force disabled people to live in nursing homes. The group is calling for 25 percent of Medicaid funds to be ear-marked for community-based nursing centers, which will enable many disabled citizens to live independently from nursing homes. “They're warehousing us (in nursing homes)," Gladstone said. “I've lived in nursing homes for 14 years and I have seen some of the brutality that goes on there." Gladstone said nursing homes are guilty of inhumane treatment and neglect of patients who are unable to defend themselves. The environment in nursing homes, Gladstone added, is not conducive to leading a normal adult lifestyle. "When you live in these nursing home facilities, they take your life away. When I first went into a nursing home, I was in a walker but they wouldn't let me walk and they put me in a wheelchair — now I can't walk," he said. Sullivan, who was under tight security, was not available for comment after the ceremonies. The HHS secretary delivered his address despite the nterruptions and emphasized a need for sensitivity and caring toward all humans. - ADAPT (349)
San Francisco Chronicle 9/28/87 S.F Protest For Disabled Turns Violent By Evelynn C. White A peaceful demonstration for the rights of the disabled to use public transit turned violent last night when 23 people were arrested, one of them on charges of assaulting a police officer. Following a rally at Union Square, 500 demonstrators converged on City Hall, where members of the American Public Transportation Association were holding a dinner meeting. Police said the melee broke out when demonstrators tried to block members from entering in the meeting. San Francisco police officer Michael Travis, 40, who was thrown down the City Halls steps in the scuffle, was treated for a possible concussion and released. Arrested in the assaulted was Alan Shipley, 40, of San Francisco, who police said is not disabled. Shipley was booked at city jail on charges of assaulted and battery on an officer and resisting arrest. The other 22 demonstrators, 19 of them wheelchair-bound were cited for failure to disperse, blocking a sidewalk and resisting arrest. They were released. Earlier in the day, 250 demonstrators at Union Square, 80 percent in wheelchairs, made a plea for better access to public transit. “In most cities, a person who is disabled can’t go to work, can’t go to school, can’t function,” said Laverne Chase, a wheelchair-bound resident of Washington, D.C. “I am here because I believe that disabled people should have equal access to everything that the mind can imagine, starting with public transportation.” The protest, sponsored by the September Alliance for Accessible Transit, was held in opposition to the APTA, which is convening in the city through the week. In the early 1980s, APTA fought to rescind federal regulations that would have required wheelchair lifts in all newly purchased transit buses and handicapped accessibility to all new rail systems. The organization instead lobbied for a “local option” alternative that allows individual transit systems to determine the best way to serve the handicapped. On Wednesday, the association plans to hold a session concerning the needs of the disabled. “I’m one of the lucky ones because I have a van,” said French. “But other wheelchair-bound people have to impose on friends and family plan weeks in advance to get where they need to go. They should be able to go down to a corner and get on a bus, to live their lives spontaneously.” - ADAPT (178)
Photo: A man in an old style motorized wheelchair (Mike Auberger) with long hair sits a half a body length above several people standing on the ground. His mouth is open in a yell and his arms are flung wide. Caption reads: 20 Disabled Protesters arrested in Washington: A wheelchair-bound protester being lifted abroad van after being arrested yesterday in Washington. About 100 disabled demonstrators turned out at the annual convention of the American Public Transit Association, demanding improved access to buses, trains, and subways. About 20 people were arrested after blocking two entrances to the convention center. - ADAPT (718)
Chicago Defender, Tuesday May 12, 1992 Sengstacke Newspaper vol. LXXXVII- No.6 35 cents, 40 cents outside Chicago and suburbs Title: Disabled group blockades street by Dobie Holland Likening the plight of the disabled to that of the Civil Rights movement, Americans Disabled for Attendant Programs Today (ADAPT) staged a blockade of downtown streets Monday in an effort to gain an audience with Health and Human Services Director Dr. Louis W. Sullivan. Sullivan, however, refused to meet with the group and 10 ADAPT members were arrested on criminal trespassing charges according to HHS and police officials. “Our ghettos are the nursing homes and facilities for the mentally retarded. Society doesn't want to recognize us. They want to put us in these ghettos," said ADAPT coordinator Bob Kafka of Austin, Texas. Hundreds of ADAPT members rolled their wheelchairs and formed a human chain in the middle of Clark and Adams streets and swamed HHS’ regional offices to demand a meeting with Sullivan. The group wants 25 percent of Medicaid funds channeled to community-based nursing centers, which would permit many disabled citizens to live at home, ADAPT representatives said. "The American Disabilities Act is very similar to the Civil Rights Act of 1964," Kafka said. “Very few people want to talk about the discrimination against the disabled. "They don't want to consider us as people and they just want to put us all in nursing homes,” Kafka continued. “Most people think a nursing home is a nice place for little old ladies...well, it's not.” Kafka, who is wheelchair-bound, said he has never been in an institution but recent political policies of the Bush Administration are making it possible. Title: ADAPT blocks street The American Health Care Association, a formidable nursing lobby, and the American Medical Association are also responsible, Kafka noted. Kafka said nursing homes have become big businesses and doctors have become owners of nursing homes, which motivated both `groups` to, support the institutionalization of the disabled. The group has been attempting to meet with Sullivan for more than two years, Kafka said. with all of their requests being rejected. A spokesperson for HHS told the group that Sullivan was contacted but said his schedule would not permit him to meet with them. On Sunday, a small band of disabled activists disrupted Sullivan's commencement address at the Univelsity of Illinois at Chicago, although the secretary did not acknowledge the ADAPT members. Guests to the gaduation day ceremonis filed past police barricades, while the activists, many in wheelchairs, circled outside the doors of the UIC Pavillion, chanting “We want Sullivan.” The demonstrators made same demands. urging the Bush Administration to redirect 25 percent of Medicaid funds currently budgeted for nursing homes and other institutions to set up community-based programs to allow the disabled to live on their own. An estimated 1.6 million disabled people now live in nursing homes. which Kafka said is a more expensive and less humane option than helping the disabled live independently. - ADAPT (328)
The Phoenix Gazette Monday, April 6, 1987 Photo by James Garcia, The Phoenix Gazette: Woman stands with arm raised, chanting. Behind her people in wheelchairs form a picket line in front of a large building. Caption: JoAnn Brown of Colorado Springs leads a protest by wheelchair-bound activists at the Hyatt Regency Sunday. Title: Wheelchair activists block restaurants Compiled by The Gazette About 100 members of a militant group of wheelchair-bound activists blocked the roads and entrances to a restaurant Sunday night in an attempt to keep people from attending a steak fry put on by the American Public Transit Association. Phoenix police arrested 27 protesters. They were taken away in handicapped-accessible vans, cited for trespassing and released, police said. Police were continuing to monitor the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit groups today, with a command post at the Civic Plaza. Adams Street, next to the Hyatt, remained blocked and about 20 officers were stationed there. Chanting and carrying placards Sunday, members of ADAPT lined up across two roads, a stairway and the doors, including the handicapped entrance to the restaurant at The Pointe at South Mountain resort. The 450 people attending the APTA convention arrived in six Phoenix buses. Some were forced to scramble up a steep gravel incline and enter through the kitchen. Others walked up the back driveway. “We plan to be here all week and to inconvenience you as much as we can,” called out one protester, who was blocking the stairs. Earlier in the day, protesters had picketed at the Hyatt Regency, where the conventioneers are staying. The protesting group, known for demonstrations on behalf of the handicapped, wants all public transit to be accessible to the wheelchair-bound. “I think they have a just cause, but I think they are carrying it to an extreme,” said Bob Hocken, general manager of the Phoenix Transit System, who walked up the hill from the lower parking lot because the stairway was blocked. After speaking to the restaurant’s manager, the group agreed to let staff, supplies, and the restaurant’s shuttle buses pass. The restaurant sent a waitress out to serve ice water. Richard Worth, a spokesman for the Regional Public Transportation Authority in Phoenix, said all of the buses currently on order “will offer wheelchair accessibility.” Of the 54 bus routes in metropolitan Phoenix, eight offer wheelchair accessibility, Worth said, and 49 of the city’s 350 buses, or 14 percent, are wheelchair accessible. Handicapped ridership on Phoenix’s routes is estimated at 509,000 per year, or 3 percent of total ridership, he said. - ADAPT (322)
Logo of a sun. The Arizona Republic April 13, 1987, Phoenix, Arizona [This story continues in ADAPT 314 but the entire text is included here for easier reading.] PHOTO by David Petkiewicz/Republic: A large group of people are standing, heading into the Hyatt Regency Hotel. Among those standing some people in wheelchairs are visible, and a reporter is there with a camera. Caption reads: Wheelchair-bound protesters and their supporters gather at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Phoenix. The group converged on the American Public Transit Association's convention at the hotel last week. Title: Driven by anger, disabled man has fought long, hard for access. By CHUCK HAWLEY The Arizona Republic Mike Landwehr pushes his own wheelchair, but it's really anger that drives the wheels. "Every day, my anger is brought forward again when l have to push my wheelchair 10 blocks in my own hometown,“ said Landwehr, a Chicago man who has been arrested a dozen or more times since 1978 while demonstrating for access to public transportation for the disabled. “I'm running out of patience.” Landwehr spent much of last week in Phoenix as a spokesman for American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit. The Denver-based group has a reputation of “getting in the face" of public officials by creating ruckuses at meetings of the American Public Transit Association, a group Landwehr describes as "the enemy." Surrounding hotels, restaurants and buses where transportation officials meet, ADAPT members express demands in rhythmic chants: “What do we want? "Access! “When do we want it? "Now!" It is, the group says, a civil-rights demonstration. Howard Adams is not driven by anger, although he was paralyzed from the neck down in a swimming accident 20 years ago. Adams, a Phoenix councilman, said disability is something he lives with, but he doesn't thrive on it. "I‘m not an expert on it,“ Adams said, “it's not the most important thing in my life." He disagrees with the civil-disobedience tactics used by ADAPT. "I guess I pour my anger into other things," he said. Adams, who served in the Arizona Legislature before his election to the City Council, recently was appointed by President Reagan to the 22-member Architectural and Transportation Compliance Board. The board oversees enforcement of federal regulations governing access for the disabled. It can recommend withholding federal funds from any organization or local government that fails to meet federal requirements for access, Adams said. Although Adams does not use city buses regularly, he said, he has used them and believes Phoenix "is in pretty good shape" with respect to disabled people. The demonstrators, he says, have a beef with the American Public Transportation Association, not with Phoenix. "The goal has always been equal opportunity and to participate in all aspects of life as best as they can," Adams said. "I agree with their goals, but I don't agree with their tactics. "They were not here to point a finger at Phoenix. They were here to protest to a group that provides public transportation to people around the country." Public transportation in Phoenix is inadequate for all people, not just the disabled, Adams said. "If I wanted to go to the council chambers right now, (8:30 p.m.) I couldn't get there on the bus anyway," he said. "If I were in a city with a higher population density, such as Chicago or New York, it would be a different story. I would expect to be able to." Adams said there appear to be "some people who are professionally disabled just like there are people who will always be soldiers in World War II." "We all carry burdens with us, but we have to overcome them," he said. "You can't take away all of the problems everybody has; you just can't. "But, to the extent that society has created barriers, you have to remove them, and I think we are doing it here." Because he uses a lift-equipped van, Adams does not ride Phoenix buses often, but he said he is not unfamiliar with the difficulty of getting from one city to another. In Los Angeles recently, he said, he was told that he could board a plane in a folding wheelchair and that his battery-operated machine would have to be left behind for a later flight in a baggage compartment. "I have trouble with airlines," he said. "They don't care. They just want to get you out of there." When his motorized chair arrived in Phoenix on a later plane, he said, "there was $2,000 in damage to it." Landwehr, 43, was born with spinal bifida, a severe birth defect that now often is correctable. New surgical techniques came too late for him, however. He lost the use of his legs during surgery when he was 12 years old. Landwehr remembers that he once tried to deny his disability, shun his wheelchair and be like everyone else. "I would get myself seated in a restaurant and ask the waitress to take my chair away and fold it up in a corner," he said. "It was a way of being like everyone else. Deep down, disabled people strive to appear not disabled.” It was painful, he said, when his parents had to move from Chicago because he could not attend public high schools there with able-bodied teen-agers. The family moved 60 miles to the suburbs after rejecting the Chicago school system's offer to provide a special bus to pick him up and deliver him to a school for the handicapped, the only school he said school officials would allow him to attend. "Thank God they (his parents) knew I would only learn to live in an institution," he said. In the suburbs, Landwehr said, he struggled to lift himself into a school bus unequipped for handicapped people. Daily, he lifted himself up the school steps as other teen-agers watched. "I know what it is like to be stared at," he said. "It's painful." It also is painful, he said, that Chicago, the nation's third-most-populous city, after New York and Los Angeles, has no city buses with wheelchair lifts for the disabled. Landwehr said that the daily difficulty of overcoming obstacles just to gain access to places others take for granted has hardened his stance for total access. He is militant. Arrests and abuse do not appear to faze him. Embarrassing others and taking the risk of alienating the public also do not seem to faze him. "There is nobody more alienated than people living in little rooms in institutions," Landwehr said. "We want to expose the public to the full range of people who are disabled. "I think our presence here at least gives the public the opportunity to reflect upon their perceptions of disabilities and disabled people. "We hope that a byproduct of our presence will give us some leverage with local politicians." Landwehr, who studied journalism and psychology at the University of Illinois but didn't earn a degree, is unemployed. He once worked with the Disability Rights Defense Fund in Washington, D.C., until federal funding for the group was cut. "We fooled them, though," he said. "Twenty-two of us started collecting Social Security disability checks and just kept on working, doing what we had been doing until the money ran out." Public officials sometimes complain that the cost of total access for the disabled is too great and the need too small. Landwehr says he doesn't believe it. For example, Milwaukee once touted the purchase of lift-equipped buses but operated them randomly on unannounced routes. Photos above: head shots of Howard Adams in white shirt and tie, and Mike Landwher with flannel shirt and mustache. Caption reads: Howard Adams (left) and Mike Landwehr both are disabled, but Adams disagrees with the civil-disobedience tactics used by Landwehr's group. - ADAPT (631)
Atlanta Daily News 10/1990 [very poor quality copy, picture almost impossible to see] IN PROTEST PHOTO by Philip Barry, Daily News A guard stands in doorway in foreground looking toward the camera. On the right side of the picture you can see the wall beside the doorway and a small sign reading: 322 Office of President. Behind this person and mostly below her hip level you can see a mass of ADAPT Protesters, a couple in wheelchairs, others apparently kneeling or staying low. By the guard's leg, you can see Anita Cameron's head and shoulder looking around the door frame. Anita is wearing an ADAPT headband and she seems to be chanting or singing. Protest A Morehouse College security guard stands watch as disabled activists take over the president's office Monday. About 60 wheelchair-bound protesters occupied the office, demanding a meeting with Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan as another 150 sat in the hallway. The group, ADAPT or American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today, plans additional protests. - ADAPT (708)
Chicago Defender, Thursday May 14, 1992 ADAPT shuts down Illinois center ADAPT protests budget cuts by Dobie Holland Hundreds of wheelchair-bound demonstrators shut down the State of Illinois Center after they converged on the building Wednesday to protest the impending budget cuts in the Home care program for the disabled. The shut down occurred after members of the Americans Disabled for Attendant Programs Today (ADAPT) were denied access to the governor’s 16th floor offices. The group retaliated with a blockade of escalators and elevators. Although ADAPT members faced barricades outside the center, once they had stormed inside, security police operating the elevators refused to allow most of the wheelchair-bound protesters upstairs. Mike Ervin, one of the Chicago coordinators for ADAPT, said they had no choice but to block the paths of pedestrians in the building by setting up wheelchair blockades of escalators and elevators in the center. They demanded a meeting with the governor. Gov. Jim Edgar was in Springfield but it was not clear by the Chicago Defender's press deadline if he would meet with the group. Gary Mack, a spokesman for the governor, said the State of Illinois has one the most “liberal programs" in the country for the disabled and cuts are being made “across the board” in the wake of a severe budget deficit. Mack said the program will lose $3 million — “a small amount" — a reduction from $68 million to $65 million. Mack added the governor was not responsible for denying the protesters access to the elevators. "They (security) have been trying to keep this place operating," Mack said. “But as l understand it, we are letting some people up here (on the 16th floor). One oi those people allowed up in the elevators to sit in the governor’s 16th floor lobby was Paulette Patterson. Patterson, who was not a member of the protest group, said she was denied access to the elevators on Tuesday when she came to the building to eat breakfast. Patterson, 35, of Chicago, said she has filed a discrimination suit against the state because she was not allowed free passage through the building “simply because I was in a wheelchair. “l was not with this group before,” she said. “But I am a member now." Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris, commenting on the conflict between security personnel and protesters, said during a Tuesday press conference: “My job is not to judge anybody but to make sure no one's rights have been violated." - ADAPT (319)
The Arizona Republic, Monday April 8, 1987 Title: Handicapped Hold Protest Photo by Pete Peters/Republic: People in wheelchairs in ADAPT T-shirts form a picket line in front of a hotel, the Regency Phoenix. They are holding posters. Behind them, in the shadows of the entrance-way to the hotel people are standing looking on. Caption reads: Members of American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit picket before the Hyatt Regency. The ADAPT demonstrators have targeted a meeting by the American Public Transit Association. Photo top right Photo by Pete Peters/Republic: A woman standing uses a sprayer to cool a woman in a wheelchair holding a large poster. caption reads: Carla Montez squirts Kelli Bates with cool water. They traveled to Phoenix from Denver to participate in an ADAPT protest. subtitle: Disrupt event; ask transit access By Chuck Hawley The Arizona Republic About 100 members of a militant group of wheelchair-bound activists blocked the roads and entrances to Rustler’s Roost on Sunday night in an attempt to stop those attending a steak fry for the American Public Transit Association’s convention. Chanting and carrying place cards members of American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit lined up across the two roads, a stairway leading form a lower parking lot and the doors including the handicapped entrance to the restaurant, which is at the Pointe at South Mountain. Police monitored the protest. The 450 people attending the weeklong convention arrived in six Phoenix buses. Some were forced to scramble up a steep gravel incline and enter through the kitchen. Others walked up the back driveway. “We plan to be here all week and to inconvenience you as much as we can,” called out one protestor, who was blocking the stairs. Earlier in the day, protestor had picketed at the Hyatt Regency, where the conventioneers are staying. The protestors at the restaurant carried placards that said, “Police wagons accessible; buses not,” and chanted, “What do we want? Access. When do we want it? Now.” The group, well-known for militant protests across the country, wants all public transit to be accessible to the wheelchair-bound. “I think they have a just cause, but I think they are carrying it to an extreme,” said Bob Hicken, general manager of the Phoenix Transit System, who walked up the hill from the lower parking lot. “We’d like to serve them all, but we can’t. If there were enough money in the world, we could do everything we wanted to.” - ADAPT (257)
The Cincinnati Post May 27, 1986 Wheelchair protesters freed early Post staff report A motion for early release of three wheelchair-bound activists was granted today by Hamilton County Municipal Court Judge J. Howard Sundermann Jr. On Friday, Sundermann sentenced Michael Auberger of Denver, George Cooper of Dallas and Bob Kafka of Austin, Texas, to 10 days in jail for their part in a protest last week at the main office of Queen City Metro. Attorney Joni Wilkens had argued against a jail term for health reasons. Today Sundermann ordered the three released after serving six days of their sentences for trespassing. Before granting the motion for early release, Sundermann asked them if they planned to go to another city and “do the same thing?” Auberger and Kafka said no, that they planned to return to their homes. Cooper did not reply.w “I think we made our point. The issue (of access to public transportation) won’t go away,” Kafka said following the hearing. Auberger, Cooper and Kafka are members of Americans Disabled for Public Transportation, which demonstrated against the lack of access by the handicapped to Queen City Metro buses. - ADAPT (201)
San Antonio Light Wednesday April 24, 1985 Front page Street Final [1?]04th year, No.93 The Largest and Best Newspaper in South Texas [Headline] Disabled Block Buses 50 protesters in wheelchairs clog downtown S.A. traffic. See Below. PHOTO by Roberta Barnes, San Antonio Light: On a city street a bare-chested man (Claude Holcolm) in a power chair sits in front of a GMC city bus blocking it. On Claude's left a man in a manual chair (Joe Carle?) rolls toward the back of the bus. On Claude's right a man on a scooter rolls down the other side of the bus. Inside the windshield of the bus is a sign that says "APTA." Caption reads: Stopping The Bus: Three Wheelchair-bound protesters block the path of a bus downtown as part of a protest over access for the disabled. - ADAPT (159)
Colorado Springs Sun PHOTO (by Mary Kelley): Close up of protester Beverly Furnice's angry face as she reclined in her wheelchair, holding a poster in her fists, which reads "Accessible Bathrooms Now!" Caption reads: Beverly Furnice holds a sign explaining one of the reasons she and other disabled people were picketing a local McDonald's Restaurant Friday. [Headline] Officials Defends McDonalds' Record By Ken Warren, Colorado Springs Sun McDonald’s Restaurants is the industry leader in providing barrier-free access to the disabled, a top official of the corporation said Friday. Robert L Keyser Ill. national director of media relations, rejected as “false" and “inappropriate" charges made by a group of wheelchair bound protesters that McDonald's discriminates against the handicapped. “We think we're the leader in the industry in barrier-free accessibility”, but there are always things we can learn, " Keyser said, watching protesters picket the McDonald's Restaurant at 207 N. Wahsatch Ave. As discussed, six weeks ago, he said, McDonald's plans to meet next week with representatives of the Denver-based Access Institute to discuss their concerns. “We want to listen. We also want them to learn a little more about McDonald's because we're committed to the community." Asked about the potential impact of the second protest against McDonald's in as many days on upcoming talks, Keyser said, "It's certainly not a sign of the good faith" in which we’ve been trying to deal with them in Denver." "He suggested "that the group had targeted McDonald's because of its size and visibility. “We clearly think it's not appropriate, but "they've done it, and we're going to speak proudly about our record." Keyser said ‘McDonald's had been striving since the 1960s to meet the needs of the disabled with ramps, drive-through lanes and other special accommodations. Robert Conrad, a protester confined to a wheelchair because of cerebral palsy criticized McDonald's for failing to do more to make their 6,400 restaurants accessible to the disabled. “We've tried to negotiate with McDonald's, but all they want to do is dialogue," he said.