Who: National ADAPT
What: Mother’s Day Recognition of Community Attendants and HCBS recipients
When: Sunday, May 8, 2022
Where: Spirit of Justice Park starting at 2PM
For More information:
Nina Bakoyiannis 646-709-2510 ninabakoyiannis@gmail.com Cathy Cranston 512-650-6543 flacacata@aol.comwww.nationaladapt.org
Washington, D.C. – National ADAPT will hold a rally south of the US Capitol to celebrate mothers that are Community Attendants and mothers with disabilities.
Mother’s Day is a day to honor and show appreciation to our mothers. The Senate has abandoned our mothers who are attendants to their child or family member, mothers with disabilities who receive attendant services, moms assisting moms, and all mothers who are attendants receiving the inadequate wages that make it difficult for them to support themselves and their families. This is how Congressional leadership “honors thy mother”.
National ADAPT and numerous attendant and disability rights advocacy groups have worked furiously to advocate for the $15 base wage, for funding for HCBS and affordable accessible integrated housing. The Congressional leadership has received hours of personal testimony, hearings, voluminous fliers, petitions, reports and countless Congressional visits, all coming together to stress the urgency of the necessary funding for HCBS and housing for people with disabilities and the community attendants that assist them. Thus far, the Senate has refused to make these issues a priority. “Such a lack of support by the Senate on the importance of the jobs we do,” said Carrie Warner, 30-year attendant in the community “such disrespect.” The Senate must make these issues a priority. Our lives depend on it.
It’s an Unhappy Mother’s Day for Community Attendants that do not get benefits; days off, not even on the day we “celebrate” them.
The Senate has also abandoned our mothers who are stuck in nursing homes, and who do not want to be in nursing homes but rather their own homes but cannot get the services they need to support them there. The bias toward institutionalization remains in Medicaid, despite decades of calls for change. States must provide institutional (including nursing homes) services while community services remain optional. With the growing shortage of attendants due to low wages and no benefits, this bias will grow even stronger. And the attendants who remain faithful to this noble profession despite the lack of pay and benefits grow older and needing supports themselves.