Having received no replies to our letter to Governor Abbot regarding attendant wages and the HHSC Commissioner’s total lack of a plan to deal with the problem of no attendants, PACT/ADAPT took action. We brought a copy of the letter over to the Governor’s Capitol Office. They did not know how to get ahold of him and bizarrely they were unable to call his scheduler. (That office really needs to upgrade it’s interoffice communications.) We said we’d wait and wait we did. Julie looked very official sitting at the Governor’s signing desk, maybe if she runs and wins the Governorship someone will do something about this crisis! But at the end of the day Capitol police were dispatched to escort us out. Those that still waited were given a paper banning them from the unreceptive Reception room for a year. What a blow! But of course we are still strong in our resolve to get this problem dealt with.
PACT and ADAPT delivering our message in the Governor’s “Reception” Room. Nancy and a determined group of PACT/ADAPT folks delivered a copy of a letter to the Governor’s office in the Insurance Building by the Capitol. They made it extra big so it wouldn’t get lost like the other copies he has been sent.
Meanwhile Desert ADAPT & PACT brought the message to the local Health and Human Services Commission, HHSC, office, (the Governor doesn’t even have an office in El Paso) and had them fax our request for a meeting so the Governor’s people would know the request was not just from pointy headed Austin folks.
Of course we will continue to demand the Governor stop ignoring this issue. If you want to help call Cathy or Nancy 512-442-0252, and call or email the Governor’s scheduler 512-463-7210 invite@gov.texas.gov and tell them to meet with PACT& ADAPT!
The UTA Disability Studies Minor, the Pre-Law Center, the Student Access & Resource Center, and the College of Liberal Arts’s Festival of Ideas are proud to present:
ADAPT of Texas and Personal Attendant Coalition of Texas Disability Rights & Community Attendants Roundtable
Please join us for this online conversation with national disability rights activists about community attendants’ experiences and the fight for better wages!
Presenters: Cathy Cranston, Nancy Crowther, Josue Rodriguez, and Francisca “Kika” Grajeda from Austin and El Paso ADAPT and Personal Attendant Coalition of Texas
Accessibility: ASL and AI CART will be available. Free and open to the public!
Desert ADAPT would like to invite you to join us as we celebrate the life and legacy of Raul Zamarripa. As we let you all know previously, Raul passed away January 20 after contracting Covid-19. We would like to for friends and family to come together and share many of the memories that Raul made with each of us. He made an impact on the lives of many people and would love to honor that as we share stories of the many times we spent with him.
Raul dedicated more than 24 years of his life to working with ADAPT to Free Our People. His dedication and passion towards fighting for the rights of people with disabilities will be greatly missed. His dedication to educate our community on issues that affect people with disabilities made him a very well-known advocate in our community and across the country. He was a fierce advocate in not only defending people with disabilities but our attendants as well. He leaves a huge void with Desert ADAPT but we are sure that he will join our other Desert ADAPT members who have gone before us and guide us from wherever they are now. If you have any photos of Raul that you would like to share with us for his memorial, please upload them to this Google Drive folder. Thank you.
Image 1: Raul in his power wheelchair in a tan Desert ADAPT shirt and hat with an orange flag on his chair.
Memorial virtual de Raúl Zamarripa
17 de febrero de 2022 3p.m. Montaña/ 2p.m. Pacífico/ 4p.m. Centro/ 5p.m. Este
Desert ADAPT quisiera invitarlo a unirse a nosotros mientras celebramos la vida y el legado de Raúl Zamarripa. Como les informamos anteriormente, Raúl falleció el 20 de enero después de contraer Covid-19. Nos gustaría que amigos y familiares se reúnan y compartan muchos de los recuerdos que Raúl hizo con cada uno de nosotros. Hizo un impacto en la vida de muchas personas y nos encantaría honrarlo mientras compartimos historias de los muchos momentos que pasamos con él.
Raúl dedicó más de 24 años de su vida a trabajar con ADAPT para Liberar a Nuestra Gente. Echaremos mucho de menos su dedicación y pasión por luchar por los derechos de las personas con discapacidad. Su dedicación para educar a nuestra comunidad sobre los problemas que afectan a las personas con discapacidades lo convirtió en un defensor muy conocido en nuestra comunidad y en todo el país. Fue un feroz defensor no solo de las personas con discapacidades sino también de nuestros asistentes personales. Deja un gran vacío con Desert ADAPT, pero estamos seguros de que se unirá a nuestros otros miembros de Desert ADAPT que nos han precedido y nos guiarán desde donde sea que estén ahora. Si tiene fotos de Raúl que le gustaría compartir con nosotros para su memorial, súbalas a esta carpeta de Google Drive. Gracias.
Imagen 1: Raúl en su silla de ruedas eléctrica con una camiseta color canela Desert ADAPT y una gorra con una bandera naranja en su silla. —
We are very sorry to tell you that our ADAPT warrior Heiwa has died. He was a passionate and committed person who loved his disability brothers and sisters fiercely. He personified the saying still waters run deep and we will miss him deeply. Heiwa means peace, in case he never told you.
Heiwa’s family had a memorial celebration of Heiwa’s life with ADAPT, on Thursday January 20th at 3:00pm central time. DUE TO INCREASE IN COVID WE ARE MAKING THIS A ZOOM ONLY EVENT.
This weekend the Armadillo Christmas Bazaar opened outside for it’s pandemic safe debut. ADAPT’s Wheelchair Santa Clones were there at the gate, collecting donations and signatures on our Support the Build Back Better bill and passing out information on disability rights. Shortened hours and less days were welcome changes for our stalwart crew of Clones — as we ease our way back into “the new normal.”
Want to help collect signatures you can send to our Senators? Click here for a copy of the petition.
To prepare this you will need $150 billion for Home and Community Based Services (HCBS) sprinkled with $ 150 billion for Affordable, Accessible, Integrated, Housing. Spread these ingredients throughout the community and allow to settle in.
Once these funds have been infused in the community; they are ready to be used to:
Expand HCBS in Medicaid, Medicare and the Affordable Care Act throughout to increase access, quality, and uniformity nationwide.
Support the Recruitment and Retention of Community Attendants
Increase payment rates in a manner that offers attendants a “living wage.”
Expand affordable, accessible, integrated housing development and rent subsidy programs targeting low- and moderate-income people with disabilities, especially people who receive HCBS services.
Expand access to accessible home modifications programs to enable people to leave or avoid institutional settings thus saving millions of health care dollars.
And to ensure that your recipe is a success, make the program Money Follows the Person permanent.
This recipe will help more people be Home for The Holidays!
ADAPT took to the streets on November 8th to call for Senator Cornyn’s support for the BBB, Build Back Better, bill currently going through Congress. National ADAPT has gone to Washington DC twice now and is headed there for a third trip to support this important legislation, and ADAPT of Texas members have gone each time. Locally however, we went to Cornyn’s office building and picketed and leafletted over 400 flyers outside. One of the building staff came out to talk with us and arranged a meeting with his staff so three of our members went in to talk with Cornyn’s staff for about 45 minutes asking for his support of the bill. Build Back Better includes increased funding for community services, it includes: • making Money Follows the Person permanent (right now it has to be reauthorized again and again), • better wages for attendants, • addressing the SUBminimum wage wages many people with disabilities work for, • increased funding for very affordable housing, • along with a host of other import human infrastructure. IF you haven’t already, please contact your US Senators and tell them you want them to support disability supportive legislation like this. Not sure how to get in touch? No problem! Click here. We will be returning soon to see what progress his staff have made on his support for any of these issues. For more information on the terrific national actions in DC go to:
Then on December 9th, with many of our members again joining National ADAPT in DC, ADAPT of Texas returned to picket Senator Cruz’s office when his staff refused to talk with us. Then they marched across downtown back to Senator Cornyn’s office to face another set of cold shoulders; his staff also refused to meet. But the action was not a bust as media came to cover the action (click here to see one story we got) and both offices knew why we were there, leaflets were passed out and our call for their support of Build Back Better was heard across downtown Austin.
ADAPT continued the push for BBB in Austin as well as DC!
Above: Ron and Bob holding BBB signs for the Austin Action
Left: BBB action signs displayed in front of ADAPT’s newly rebuilt 10 foot wheelchair.
Disgusted with Texas’ Health and Human Services Commission’s lack of interest in the attendants who are the back bone of long term services and supports, PACT and ADAPT members took action on October 22.
Since previous communication had been ignored, the group took along a giant letter listing our concerns. HHSC, we had learned, had never bothered to bring up the need for higher wages for community attendants during the special sessions this summer. We already knew they hadn’t included anything about better wages during the regular legislative session, not even putting it in their exceptional items in their budget request.
During the summer, when states were submitting requests to the federal Health and Human Services Dept. for pandemic related funds, Texas had not put in a mention of attendants, and had purposefully avoided getting input from the public – something the feds had recommended but not required. Members of their Direct Services Workforce Group, which was alegedly set up to advise on such matters, were not even asked for advice. Over half the members including all the consumer group representatives and some providers were so disgusted with HHSC’s lack of interest in the issue they resigned en masse in August.
We also brought a giant syringe (designed and made by the creative Eli R.C.) to show the need for better COVID protections for community attendants. All through the pandemic PACT and ADAPT have been mailing out masks to attendants and folks who use attendant services; we arranged a mask and sanitizer give away with Austin Public Health for attendants and attendant service agencies; we arranged for vaccines for attendants and those who use these services along with Austin Public Health and the Housing Authority of the City of Austin. HHSC seems to have done absolutely nothing for these direct care workers who provided these critical services, basically at their own risk, for over a year.
Unbeknownst to us, HHSC had snuck across the street from their old location, but we quickly regrouped and tracked them down. We took over the lobby of their fancy new offices and the Executive Commissioner Cecile Young, too chicken to come down herself, sent a staffer who after listening finally agreed to set up a meeting with Ms. Young.
Security escorted us out of the building once we were done, tsk tsking us as went. But shortly thereafter, as we were debriefing outside, one security woman came out to thank us as she works as an attendant in a group home for her other job and completely agreed with everything we said.
We will be meeting with Executive Commissioner very soon!
Nancy, Nicky and Jay get ready for march to HHSC HQ.
Cathy displays props for the action
Protesters with signs assemble for action at HHSC in Oct.
ADAPT members pose before the Capitol at the start of their overnight vigil to call for Congress to include funding for attendant services in the Build Back Better Budget Reconciliation bill.
Supporters of attendants, consumers of attendant services and supports, friends and allies are holding a 24 hour vigil in front of the US Capitol to call attention to the critical need to fund these services better. These services as well as truly affordable, accessible housing are on the chopping block as Congress debates a compromise for the bill. Vigil participants are reading stories from folks affected by the current crisis in attendant services who could not travel to DC, sharing their own personal stories, songs and more.
Thurs, Oct 7 from 6-7 pm Eastern time (5 – 6 pm central/Austin time and 4-5 pm mountain/El Paso time) there is a closing ceremony.
The event is co-hosted by ACLU, ADAPT, The Arc of the United States, Autistic Self Advocacy Network, AAPD, Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, Be A Hero, Care Can’t Wait Coalition, Caring Across Generations, Little Lobbyists, Justice in Aging, National Council on Independent Living, National Domestic Workers Alliance, National Council on Aging, National Health Law Program, and SEIU.
13 Texas ADAPT activists joined hundreds of activists from around the country in Washington DC to highlight the need for the BCBJ Act to include the $400 billion for Home and Community Services and accessible affordable integrated housing .
Yesterday (10/6/21) ADAPT of Texas and other ADAPT members were arrested at the Hart Building trying to get meeting with Senators Manchin and Sinema.
Back here in Texas, our legislature is back in another special session to decide how to send federal dollars sent to the states to help in these crisis times. Of course the critical lack of attendants appears to be invisible to them. Their budget committees held one day of hearings each (with minimal notice). They seem to not believe their is a need for attendants, that attendants need to make a living wage, and that these issues impact Texans with disabilities. You can help by contacting your state Senator and state Representative click here to find out who they are and how to reach them.
People are spending the night in their wheelchairs, and getting bedsores from it. They are being forced to think about moving into nursing homes, and worse. Why? The critical shortage of attendants! One of the main causes is the piss poor wages our stingy state allows. When you can make almost twice the hourly wage flipping burgers at fast food joints, packing boxes at Amazon, and similar jobs, and when attendant wages won’t pay the rent or put food on the table, why does anyone stay in this job? More and more, they don’t.
So add your voice to the call for better wages for our attendants, so we can keep having community attendant services programs in this state. And do it today.
This week is disability voter registration week (which of course is really pretty much year round.) The disability voting project REV UP Texas and Register 2 Vote have made a handy tool for you!
If you aren’t registered to vote, or you need to update information for your voter registration, like if you have moved, use the QR code below or click here and it takes you to a site where you can register to vote or update your info. You will be mailed a stamped, addressed postcard with all your info filled in and you just need to sign it and stick it in the mail. Share with friends, cohorts, etc.
Just point your phone camera at this picture and website pops up!
If you don’t think your vote counts, ask yourself why people are trying to make it harder to vote.
Want to find out more about Registering Educating yourself on the issues Voting and Using your Power? (REV UP Texas) click here.
Nicky Boyte joins with Travis County Commissions to receive 2021 Voter Registration proclamation.
