October 8, 2001
For more information, contact:
Bob Kafka (512) 442-0252
Marsha Katz (406) 829-9495
Tim Wheat (901) 726-6404

ADAPT Tells San Francisco "Don't Use Public $$$ to Rebuild a Dinosaur -
There is a Better Way!"

(SAN FRANCISCO) ADAPT, the nation's largest grassroots disability rights group, thinks that the City by the Bay must be caught in an oppressive time warp as it moves to rebuild the world's largest nursing home rather than direct efforts and funding to support citizens in their own homes. Determined to make Mayor Willie Brown hear the moral outrage of the nation's disability community, 500 members of ADAPT, joined by hundreds more Californians, will be in San Francisco October 20-25 to protest the reconstruction of the city and county-owned and operated 1200 bed Laguna Honda.

For over 30 years America has been working to downsize and close state institutions and nursing homes for children and adults with developmental and other disabilities. In recent years, both the former Clinton and current Bush Administrations have supported and are funding community based alternatives and initiatives to keep Americans from being forced into nursing homes and other institutions. In 1999 the U.S. Supreme Court mandated that states and local governments couldn't force people into institutional settings if the needed services and supports could be provided in their own homes in the community.

"Despite federal law, social trends and sustained vocal opposition from the California disability community, the City of San Francisco and the unions marketed and passed a bond issue to rebuild the 1200 bed Laguna Honda by essentially hoodwinking the public," said Stephanie Thomas of ADAPT. "They never once told the voters that this bond money can be redirected to build many community living alternatives that would not warehouse over a thousand people with disabilities, and they never once asked the old and young people warehoused in Laguna Honda what they want."

Convinced the City's plan to rebuild Laguna Honda is a violation of federal law, ADAPT has filed a formal complaint with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights ( HHS /OCR). ADAPT is asking HHS /OCR to stop federal funding and reimbursements until the city works with the disability community to develop a "Community Alternatives Transition Plan" that would redirect the bond money designated to rebuild Laguna Honda to provide community based long term care services.

"Rebuilding is an outrage and a deplorable use of public money," said Jana Overbo, of San Francisco's Independent Living Resource Center (ILRC). " I'm an aging baby boomer, and I want to know that my community will still include me as I lose function, not ship me off to a huge institution like an unwanted pet going to the humane society, never to be seen again."

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