Disability rights community urges rapid move to end segregation

Members of the disability rights community will hold a press conference on Thursday, April 27, at noon in Hearing Rooms 2A and 2B of the Missouri State Capitol to call on the state of Missouri to end the segregation of people with disabilities in institutions.

In June 1999, the United States Supreme Court Justices ruled in the Olmstead v. L.C. and E.W. that under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), “unjustifiable isolation is properly regarded as discrimination based on disability.” United States Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala has made Olmstead implementation in Missouri a priority issue of the Region VII Office for Civil Rights.

While Missouri has made progress in increasing community options, the state must develop a plan to implement Olmstead and give all people with disabilities options to live in the community. In 1998, 73% of Missouri’s total Medicaid long-term care expenditures went to institutional care while only 27% funded community-based, non-institutional services. The Regional Office for Civil Rights has received several complaints from individuals placed in institutions that their ADA rights are being violated by the state of Missouri.

“We want to live in the community like everyone else,” says Mary, who was placed in a nursing home after she was disabled. “To live isolated from the rest of society is degrading and depressing. I was trapped there against my will. If this type of segregation was happening to African-Americans or women, people wouldn’t stand it for a minute.”

On April 18, 2000, Governor Mel Carnahan issued an Executive Order to establish an Olmstead Commission that will develop a comprehensive implementation plan. “We are pleased that Governor Carnahan is taking action to bring Missouri into full compliance with the ADA,” says Kirsten Dunham, disability rights organizer. “But while the Commission spends time studying and recommending changes in the system, the state departments also need to take immediate action to identify individuals in institutions who can move to the community using existing services and to divert people from ever entering an institution against their will.”

Governor Carnahan has been invited to announce his Executive Order at the press conference. Other speakers include people with disabilities who currently live or have lived in institutions and Representative Quincy Troupe (St. Louis) and Senator Joe Maxwell (Mexico), who have both taken the lead in increasing community options for people with disabilities of all ages.

Access II’s Executive Director, Gary Maddox, has been working diligently with other members of the disability community at the state and federal levels to insure that Missouri develops a comprehensive plan. “It hits pretty close to home when you have consumers leaving a hospital setting and going straight into a nursing home because there are limited community and home based services,” stated Maddox. Further information may be obtained on Access II’s web site: www.ccp.com/~access and click on Freedom House.