MCIL is Moving

After 33 years in Midtown the Memphis Center for Independent Living is moving. Our mission is to facilitate the full integration of persons with disabilities into all aspects of community life and it will remain our motivation and passion.

“The staff is excited about the move,” said Sandi Klink the Executive Director of MCIL, “and I am excited about the new location and the new opportunities for the Center.”

Since 1985 MCIL has been the center of a network of action, information, and resources to assist people with disabilities to conquer the barriers, overcome isolation and end dependency of people with disabilities. MCIL encourages people with disabilities to work with staff and peers with disabilities to build a new accessible welcoming community.

MCIL is moving this week 810 Clark Tower, 5100 Poplar Ave., Memphis, TN 38137.

“The Center began in midtown Memphis and has long been associated with the area,” said Tim Wheat the Program Director. “The Center is not moving out of midtown as much as MCIL is working to embrace all of Shelby county and looking to serve more of the Midsouth. We will miss our neighbors but we hope to make new friends and reach more people with disabilities looking for independence.”

MCIL has a long history of advocacy for citizens with disabilities and is mostly known for support for accessible transportation, fair housing and promoting the Americans with Disabilities Act. MCIL has worked to provide people with disabilities options to living in facilities and institutions and offers a transition program to assist people to live in their own home rather than an expensive institution.

People with disabilities are a powerful and significant part of our community, yet; as a group, our social roles have been marginalized by bigotry, discrimination, poverty, isolation, dependency and pity. Americans with disabilities have not had access to transportation, housing and employment that other citizens have enjoyed; MCIL will change that.

The office on Madison will be closed October 1, but MCIL will still be available on the phone 901-726-6404 and on web www.mcil.org. Tuesday, October 9 MCIL plans to have moved operations to Suite 810 at Clark Tower and the Center will hold our annual silent auction and open house there on December 7, 2018.

Allison works to get Sen. Alexander to cosponsor the DIA

National ADAPT in Washington to get Disability Rights Legislation

By Allison Donald
I traveled with National ADAPT to Washington DC to secure Republican Co-Sponsorship in the US Senate. The Disability Integration Act has 123 total cosponsors and sixteen Republican cosponsors on the House side, but the civil-rights legislation does not have any Republican cosponsors in the Senate.  During our time in DC National ADAPT visited the office of Senator Jeff Flake (Arizona), Senator Ben Sasse (Nebraska), Senator Isakson (Georgia), Senator Don Young (Alaska), Senator Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Ted Cruz (Texas), Lamar Alexander (Tennessee), and Corey Gardner (Colorado).

I was with a group of 20 ADAPTers who split up into smaller teams to inform the US Senate about the Disability Integration Act and its impact on the Constitutional rights of people with disabilities. My team included (Stephanie Woodard, Sophie Poost, and Katie) all from Rochester, New York we met up with everyone in the office of Georgia senator Isakson. We then proceeded to the office of Texas senator Ted Cruz.

This was National ADAPT’s eighth visit to Senator Cruz’s office in two years to ask why he has yet to cosponsor the Disability Integration Act, S 910. 

“To be honest I have not read the bill,” said Greg Beretan, a Cruz staffer. “We feel very strongly that the text of the bill actually fits with everything Senator Cruz has spoken about.” 

We waited for another thirty minutes and Judd Stone, Chief Council for Senator Cruz walked in the office and wanted to discuss the legislation with my team.

“This is extremely complex," said Judd Stone, "and there are way too may laws in here to give an offhand opinion.” 

As a result of this meeting National ADAPT secured an October 1st meeting to answer other questions Cruz’ staff may have about the bill. The meeting was productive and far less infuriating than our encounter with the staff of Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander.

As we exited the office of Senator Cruz we stopped in the hall of the Dirksen Senate building to put on red and black plaid flannel shirts to match the one that is encased on the wall in Senator Lamar Alexander’s office. National ADAPT began to file into the Senator's office and occupy the space. We were there to share the story of the Underground Railroad for Tennesseans who had to escape our state and moved to Colorado because of the lack of supports and services for people with disabilities.

While we were engaged in conversation with Senator Alexander’s staff, the police were called and we were asked to leave. Senator Alexander and his staff displayed a complete disregard for not only us, but the thousands of Tennesseans who were locked in expensive institutions. 

Since Senator Alexander did not want to see us at his office National ADAPT went to his apartment.

I traveled with the ADAPT group to Senator Alexander’s apartment door in our red and black plaid shirts. We began to knock and put leaflets under his door as well as the doors of his neighbors. National ADAPT led by Anita Cameron also began to sing “We who believe in freedom shall not rest until freedom comes." The song continued as we were being escorted out of the building by security. 

National ADAPT left Senator Alexander a clear message, that Tennesseans wanted him to support people with disabilities living in the community and not expensive institutions. It was satisfying it was to pay Senator Alexander a visit at his home. 

National ADAPT’s work was not done, however, we had some unfinished business with Colorado Senator Corey Gardner.

The next day we visited the office of Colorado Senator Corey Gardner. ADAPT was there to confront the staff about the Senator’s refusal to co-sponsor the Disability Integration Act S910. 

While we sat in the office for two hours, staffers were coming in and out and we began to ask the question:

“Why is Senator Corey Gardner the only member of the Colorado delegation not to sign on to the DIA?” 

We did not get a sufficient answer and began to chant “we have waited long enough; DIA today." For the next two hours until the staff had all five protestors forcibly removed from the doorway of the office and then thirteen more were arrested

from the office itself. We spent a total of 12 hours in the Senate buildings and waiting on ADAPTers to be released from custody as a result of the interaction with Senator Corey Gardner office.

National ADAPT took some positive steps forward with Texas Senator Ted Cruz and his staff, but the interactions with his fellow Senate colleagues Corey Gardner and Lamar Alexander proves there is still so much work to be done.

FREE OUR PEOPLE!

More MATA route cuts hurt Memphis

 A letter to the editor of the Commercial Appeal by Johnny Mosley 

I am disappointed. Fifty [years] after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his life while helping low-income local workers, MATA is proposing to make life more miserable for low-income bus riders by cutting and eliminating bus service across Shelby County.

Be aware, those who live in Boxtown, Westwood, New Chicago, N orthaven, Whitehaven, and areas near the University of Memphis Area and Shelby Farms. MATA is proposing to eliminate the 5 Central, 6 Northhaven, 31 Firestone, 38 Boxtown, 46 Whitehaven, and 47 Shelby Farms Park to balance its annual budget. Cutting those routes will also mean the end of public transportation for residents who depend on MATAPLUS for their transportation needs.

I understand that MATA is required to balance its budget. But I believe there is something fundamentally and morally wrong about MATA balancing its budget on the backs of low-income bus riders when there are other ways: Streamline its administration; Impose a hiring freeze; Initiate administrative salary caps; Put smaller buses on routes in communities where big buses are not necessary; Incorporate service changes by riders, current and retired bus drivers who know the bus routes better than some members of the MATA administration.

If it is true, as MATA claims, that the system is experiencing heavy financial troubles beyond its control, maybe the time has come for MATA to file Chapter 9 in U.S. Bankruptcy Court. In doing so, MATA may be able to seek protection from its creditors while organizing a plan to adjust and repay debts. At the same time, MATA may be able to buy the much-needed time to strengthen the public transportation system so bus riders will no longer have to constantly worry about losing their transportation lifeline every six months.

I am convinced that if MATA wants the citizens of Shelby County to support a dedicated funding source to provide an additional $30 million for its annual operating budget, MATA must first prove it can provide adequate public transportation for current riders who are struggling to live productive lives.

The MATA board is scheduled to vote on its proposed service cuts at 3:30 p.m. Thursday. If approved, route cuts would begin Nov. 11. Join us at the meeting. Let your voices be heard loud and clear.

Johnnie Mosley, chairman, Citizens For Better Service

Change is Coming

MCIL invited friends and collaborators into the office at 1633 Madison Avenue for one last meal and a public forum of changes that are coming. The message was that MCIL was still focused on our mission to fully integrate people with disabilities into all aspects of community life, but we were going to change locations. MCIL also had to note that there were many other changes going on and the MCIL staff were dedicated to continue to advocate for people with disabilities.

The highlight of the meeting was when individuals gave unscripted testimony about what all MCIL had given to them. It was an unplanned outpouring of love and support that was touching. It felt like people were saying goodbye, but Sandi Klink was able to reinforce the message that MCIL was keeping with the mission.

The Executive Director of MCIL, Sandi, gave a clear outline of the changes that people could expect from MCIL and the things that were changing. She also balanced her presentation with a clear statement that the mission and passion of MCIL were not changing and people can expect that we will continue to assertively advocate for independence and equality.

The Center also wished to confirm our continued support for the Memphis 3.0 process and the contemplative changes that Memphis can expect. Tim Wheat, the Program Director, facilitated a discussion on questions about the ADA that may impact the upcoming Transition Plan and the focus of MCIL.

People with disabilities had a lot to say about the future of the ADA in Memphis. MCIL kept a brief summary of the questions and answers:

1. Tell us all about a time when the ADA has made a difference in your life? One person said that the ADA made a difference everyday, others mentioned curb-ramps from MCIL’s lawsuit Uttilla v. Memphis, crossing signals and ramps.
   
2. Right now, Memphis 3.0 is planning for the future of Memphis, where do you see people with disabilities in our city in 5 years and in 30 years? Some people saw good things for the future and some saw problems. People wanted employment to change and they saw many people leaving the city.
   
3. What do you find as the most overlooked protection of the ADA? There were a lot of things and it is not fully discussed here, but a short list would be: accommodations, access to the city, employment, transportation, information and housing.
   
4. What do you feel are the most important changes for Memphis to consider when the City creates its ADA Transition Plan? The ability to come together and have our voices heard, the need to work together, for each of us to know more about the ADA and teach others, have workshops on the ADA and MATA to understand the ADA.
   
5. What do you think MCIL can do to help enforce the Civil Rights protections of the ADA? Work with MATA, educate people about accessibility and closed captioning for all media.
   
6. Using the ADA as a yardstick, how does Memphis measure in employment, public access, government services and communication? The group agreed that Memphis was poor in access, some gave good examples such as: Chattanooga, Denver, Vegas, Nashville, Houston and Florida.
   
7. What do you find is the most important Civil Rights protection for you? ADA employment protections, equality and government services, access protections to public accommodations, communication, the Fair Housing Amendment Act or other civil rights protections? Housing and denial of services.
   
8. Employment of people with disabilities has stayed much the same as it was before the ADA, what could make the biggest impact in getting more people with disabilities into the workforce? People answered that advocacy and knowledge of employers about how to accommodate and integrate employees with disabilities would be important. They also suggested MCIL should train employers to see the ability not the liability. They also added sensitivity training.
   
9. Do you know any examples of the ADA being abused or disability rights being extended too far? The group did have some examples of abuse like service animals, nursing home services and online applications.
   
10. What do you see locally as the greatest success of the ADA? People mentioned audible crossing signals the crosstown concourse as a great example of accessibility if improvements in areas of town in curb ramps and the yellow marks on sidewalks.

Beginning October 1 MCIL will be moving to 5100 Poplar Ave., Memphis, TN it in the clock tower building in East Memphis. Sandy showed some pictures of the new office and invited everyone to come and visit us after the move.

The Underground Railroad

The Memphis to Denver Underground Railroad highlights the need for the Disability Integration Act

LaTonya Reeves moved to Denver Colorado in the early 1990s, but she didn’t arrive from Memphis Tennessee as a typical transplant from the volunteer state. She was a pioneer, a traveler on the modern underground railroad from a state that had forced her into an expensive facility because of her disability.

LaTonya was a refugee, fleeing Tennessee for the opportunity for services in her own home. She met Wade Blank, the founder of ADAPT, at the Denver airport and began a life working to change the institutional bias in Medicaid.

"I had an accident and they made me wash my face in feces and urine," LaTonya Reeves said about a nursing home in Memphis. "The nurse put me in the tub and threw ice-cold water on my face. She told me if I didn't stop screaming she would drown me."

Deborah Cunningham helped LaTonya and others to leave expensive nursing facilities in Tennessee to live in their own homes in Colorado. As the Executive Director of The Memphis Center for Independent Living Deborah literally put people on an airplane out of town, to move to a new state where home and community based options made it possible for them to live in their own apartment.

Deborah created an “Underground Railroad,” for about ten years that gave people an option to live in their own home when the state of Tennessee did not. Medicaid is a federal program that is shared with the states and Colorado state policy allowed for more cost-effective home and community based services, while Tennessee limited options to expensive facilities.

Daryl Williams made the trip on the “disability underground railroad” in 2003 and he returned to speak at the Memphis Center for Independent Living before Deborah Cunningham died in 2015. He left a Memphis nursing home with nothing and came back to train Care Managers on nursing home transitions.

Daryl Williams did not have to say much, the fact that he had a job in Colorado and was a taxpayer says a lot about the difference in how the states supported their citizens. But Daryl did have a lot to say. He drove back to Memphis in his own van that he controls partly with a joystick. He also was able to announce that he had just closed on a home and was giving more back from additional work he was doing.

The legacy of the underground railroad out of Tennessee should be a major reason Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander and the HELP Committee schedules hearings on the Disability Integration Act.

The Disability Integration Act (DIA) is non-partisan civil rights legislation, introduced by Senator Schumer in the Senate (S. 910) and Representative Sensenbrenner in the House (H.R.2472), to address the fundamental issue that people who need Long Term Services and Supports are forced into expensive institutions and losing their basic civil rights.

Tennessee more than most states needs the Disability Integration Act. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, nursing homes nationally cost approximately $6,500 per month for an individual. Although the volunteer state has made progress providing home and community based services, the state still spends the lion share of Medicaid on institutional care.

“It’s ridiculous that Senator Alexander hasn’t stepped up for Disabled Tennesseans,” said Michael Heinrich an ADAPT activist and constituent of Alexander’s from Memphis. “If he doesn’t want to be on the wrong side of history, he should cosponsor DIA.”

The Underground Railroad gave Tennesseans a chance at life. They had to leave behind their homes and families for a taste of freedom. Now Tennessee must look at the DIA to give people that same opportunity.

“I would be dead if I would have stayed in Tennessee,” said LaTonya Reeves. 

LaTonya now lives and works in Denver Colorado.