Current
Advocacy Agenda
Community Choice Act (formerly MiCASSA - Medicaid Community
Attendant Services and Supports Act)
Why is living in the community so important? ADAPT explains
it best.
“For decades, people with disabilities, both old and
young, have wanted alternatives to nursing homes and other institutions
when they need long term services. Our long term care system
has a heavy institutional bias. Every state that receives Medicaid
MUST provide nursing home services, but community based services
are optional. Sixty five percent of Medicaid long term care dollars
pay for institutional services, while the remaining 25% must
cover all the community based waivers, optional programs, etc.
Families
are in crisis. When support services are needed there are no
real choices in the community. Whether a child is born with a
disability, an adult has a traumatic injury or a person becomes
disabled through the aging process, they overwhelmingly wan t
their attendant services provided in their own homes, not nursing
homes or other large institutions. People with disabilities and
their families will no longer tolerate being forced into selecting
institutions. It's time for Real Choice.
The Community Choice
Act provides an alternative and will fundamentally change our
long term care system and the institutional bias that now exists.
Building on the Money Follows the Person concept, the two million
Americans currently residing in nursing homes and other institutions
would have a choice. In addition, people would not be forced
into institutions in order to get out on community services;
once they are deemed eligible for the institutional services,
people with disabilities and their families will be able to choose
where and how they receive services. Instead of making a new
entitlement, the Community Choice Act, makes the existing entitlement
more flexible.
The Community Choice Act establishes a national
program of community-based attendant services and supports for
people with disabilities, regardless of age or disability. This
bill would allow the dollars to follow the person, and allow
eligible individuals, or their representatives, to choose where
they would receive services and supports. Any individual who
is entitled to nursing home or other institutional services will
now be able to choose where and how these services are provided.
Integration Not Segregation [Olmstead and
Real Choice] :
In 1999,
in the Olmstead v. L.C. case, the United States Supreme Court
affirmed the right of individuals with disabilities to live in
the community.
The case involved two Georgia women who were being housed in
a state psychiatric hospital.
Based on the federal Americans with Disabilities Act, the court
held that states are required to place persons with mental disabilities
in community settings rather than in institutions “when the State’s
treatment professionals have determined that community placement
is appropriate, the transfer from institutional care to a less
restrictive setting is not opposed by the affected individual,
and the placement can be reasonably accommodated, taking into
account the resources available to the State and the needs of
others with mental disabilities.”
At the direction of Congress, the Attorney General issued regulations
implementing the Americans with Disabilities Act. Under the regulations,
states must undertake all reasonable steps necessary to allow
people with developmental or mental disabilities to live in the
community to the fullest extent possible.
Money
Follows the Person – what
is it?
Money Follows the Person
allows states to take Medicaid dollars that would have supported
the person in a nursing home bed and pay for community based
services instead.
Read
more about Pennsylvania’s plan for Money Follows the Person:
Housing
[Fair Housing and Housing Help]
Inclusionary zoning
Inclusionary zoning (IZ) requires developers
to make a percentage of housing units in new residential developments
available to low- and moderate-income households. In return,
developers receive non-monetary compensation-in the form of density
bonuses, zoning variances, and/or expedited permits-that reduce
construction costs. By linking the production of affordable housing
to private market development, IZ expands the supply of affordable
housing while dispersing affordable units throughout a city or
county to broaden opportunity and foster mixed-income communities.
Read
more about Inclusionary Zoning
Liberty Resources Housing Advocacy
Department works tirelessly on Inclusionary Zoning and the other
housing initiatives listed below.
Read more about Liberty Resources
Housing Advocacy Services
Read more links to Housing Section
Housing vouchers
Housing vouchers
can be used successfully to move people out of nursing homes.
Read
more.
Visitability –
What is it?
Visitability is an initiative that
makes public and private housing more accessible to people with
disabilities. Visitability provides a minimal level of basic
access, typically, zero-step entrance, sufficiently wide doorways
and a usable bathroom on the first floor to permit friends and
relatives with disabilities to easily visit your home.
The following
links provide the best resources:
