Not Dead Yet Leaders To Speak At Disability Integration Act Reintroduction on M.L. King’s Jan. 15 Birthday

Contacts: Diane Coleman 708-420-0539
Anita Cameron 585-259-8746

Not Dead Yet’s Director of Minority Outreach Anita Cameron will MC the ADAPT celebration of the reintroduction of the Disability Integration Act (DIA) in Congress on M.L. King’s Birthday, Tuesday, January 15^th. Cameron has been an ADAPT organizer and activist for decades and has the distinction of having been arrested for nonviolent civil disobedience for disability rights more times than any other disability activist in the nation.

NDY Board officer Shonda McLaughlin will speak on behalf of Not Dead Yet at this public event. Senator Schumer, Senator Bob Casey, Senator Cory Gardner and Representative Jim Sensenbrenner have confirmed that they will speak, along with representatives of leading disability rights and seniors organizations that are joining together to advance the DIA.

“This bill is vital to seniors and people with disabilities,” said Cameron. “DIA ensures that people can live in freedom in our communities rather than being forced into nursing facilities and other institutions. It is bipartisan legislation that has a real chance to pass in this Congress.”

The celebration event will be held on January 15, 2019, from 3 – 4pm ET at the Capitol Visitors Center Room SVC 202-3 in Washington, D.C., and will be simulcast on National ADAPT‘s social media.

The Disability Integration Act is civil rights legislation. The bill ends what disabled activists have long called “the institutional bias” by requiring that any public or private insurer offering long term supports and services must make them available in a community setting rather than only in institutions and nursing facilities.

In the last session, DIA was introduced by Senator Schumer in the Senate and Representative Sensenbrenner in the House. The legislation builds on the 25 years of work that ADAPT has done to end the institutional bias and provide seniors and people with disabilities home and community-based services as an alternative to institutionalization.

Much of the excitement over the reintroduction comes from the feeling that DIA’s time has come. “The midterm elections changed everything. With Dems taking over the house, there is a real opportunity to pass the bill on the House side this year” said Kelly Buckland, Executive Director of the National Council on Independent Living. “As someone who uses attendant services and has spent time in a nursing facility, I can’t begin to express how exciting it is that this is finally going to happen.”

It is not a coincidence that the celebrations and the reintroduction are taking place on January 15th, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. The Disability Rights movement has deep ties the Civil Rights leader and has long marked the day as Freedom Day.As Cameron has previously written, explaing the solidarity between ADAPT and NDY, DIA “would give people with disabilities and seniors the civil right to receive attendant services and other supports at home, instead of in institutions.”

Not Dead Yet opposes the legalization of assisted suicide and strongly supports DIA because it addresses many of the reported concerns of people who request assisted suicide by assisting people to live at home, for whatever time they have, rather than assisting them to die.