Local Disability Rights Advocates In Georgia

10/10/2009
By: Virginia Butler, RNEWS

Thirty disability rights advocates from Rochester are in Georgia for the next several days to help seniors and people with disabilities.

They left late Friday night to join more than 500 disability rights advocates who are urging Georgia to come into compliance with the Olmstead decision.

It gives seniors and people with disabilities the right to live in the community rather then being forced into institutional settings. This is the 10th anniversary of Olmstead which is based on a case in Atlanta.

Anita Cameron from the Center For Disability Rights says “Each state has to come up with what’s known as an Olmstead plan to transition people with disabilities and seniors who are living in institutional settings like nursing facilities, psychiatric hospitals, state schools, those people who choose to be in a community each state is supposed to have a plan in place to transition these folks.”

They are also advocating for a bill currently working it’s way through congress that’s called the Community Choice act. Cameron says,

“It would give people with disabilities and seniors in institutional setting or at risk of that placement the choice to live in the community with the services and supports that they need. It would mandate home and community based care.”

The group returns October 15th.