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Disability activists in DC upset over Clinton's "billion-dollar giveaway to nursing home industry"
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Oct. 3, 2000 -- The grassroots, direct-action group American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today -- ADAPT -- is in the nation's capital this week pushing for Administration action on alternatives to nursing homes. "Nobody wants to live in a nursing home," ADAPT has said for years. Yet funding for in-home assistance in this nation is a tiny fraction of the public money going into nursing homes. Hundreds of ADAPT activists chained themselves to the White House gate on Monday; they say that as a result of Monday's action, the Administration has promised a meeting in October. Background provided by ADAPT can be found at http://home.mem.net/~mcil/adapt/wdc/index.htm
FACT: Americans need 21 billion hours of assistance yearly with things like bathing and dressing, according to the NIDRR-funded Disability Statistics Center (at the University of California, San Francisco). Very little in-home personal assistance is paid for with public funds. The Center Director, Mitchell P. LaPlante, can be reached by email at laplant@itsa.ucsf.edu