disabilities

30Aug

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

POLITICS

Medicaid Program Expands Funding For Seniors And People With Disabilities

The Biden administration recently announced approximately $25 million in grants to expand a Medicaid program that has allowed more than 90,000 disabled people and seniors to move out of institutional settings like nursing homes and back into their communities. Money Follows the Person is a demonstration program designed to support states in expanding their home care services. Demonstration programs are used to test new and innovative policies in the states. The nearly $25 million announced August 22 will support early planning for MFP in Illinois, Kansas, New Hampshire, American Samoa and Puerto Rico, bringing the total to 41 states and territories offering the program. Currently, nursing home care is a Medicaid entitlement, meaning states are required to provide it to seniors and peopl...

People With Disabilities Ignored By Governments

3Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

IMPACT

People With Disabilities Ignored By Governments

People with disabilities are especially vulnerable to the impacts of climate change but are “systematically ignored” by governments around the world, a new report shows. No countries include disabled people in their greenhouse gas reduction plans and few even provide for their needs when planning to adapt to the increasing effects of the climate crisis. Even after widespread failures to account for people with disabilities around Hurricane Katrina, disabled people had to sue New York City to ensure emergency shelters and evacuation facilities would be accessible after the city failed to do so around Hurricane Sandy. (The Guardian) Nexus Media News

More Than 550,000 People With Intellectual Disabilities In US Prisons Face Exploitation, Harsh Treatment

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

IN OTHER NEWS

More Than 550,000 People With Intellectual Disabilities In US Prisons Face Exploitation, Harsh Treatment

Prison life in the U.S. is tough. But when you have an intellectual, developmental or cognitive disability – as hundreds of thousands of Americans behind bars do – it can make you especially vulnerable. In March, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the federal agency tasked with gathering data on crime and the criminal justice system, published a report that found roughly two in five – 38% – of the 24,848 incarcerated people they surveyed across 364 prisons reported a disability of some sort. Across the entire incarcerated population, that translates to some 760,000 people with disabilities living behind bars. Around a quarter of those surveyed reported having a cognitive disability, such as difficulty remembering or making decisions. A similar proportion reported at some point being told ...

During A Pandemic People With Disabilities Are At Greater Risk Of Going Hungry

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

IN OTHER NEWS

During A Pandemic People With Disabilities Are At Greater Risk Of Going Hungry

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed uncomfortable and distressing truths about American society: namely, the struggle many Americans face just getting by. Yet, while the pervasive food insecurity that has always existed in the U.S. became more visible, how the problem disproportionately affects people with disabilities has received less attention. As an ethnographer of food, poverty and welfare, I study how people respond to economic scarcity through caregiving networks. Although caregiving networks like neighborhood mutual aid groups and pop-up food banks quickly emerged to support vulnerable groups during the pandemic, people with disabilities have continued to face additional challenges. High risk of food insecurity An estimated 25% of U.S. adults have some form of physical or intell...

The Disabilities Map Visualizes The Strength And Power Of Millions Of Athletes Around The Globe

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

HEALTH & WELLNESS, VIDEO REELS

The Disabilities Map Visualizes The Strength And Power Of Millions Of Athletes Around The Globe

When the Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law in 1990, it became illegal to restrict access – to employment, education or federally funded institutions – based on disability. The ADA made it easier for wheelchair users, senior citizens or a disabled child to navigate public spaces and to have equal access to learning. Qaphela Dlamini, educator, wheelchair basketball player and disability rights advocate from South Africa. globalsportsmentingprogram/flickr, CC BY-ND Many Americans who are not disabled benefit from the ADA. Building ramps, curb cuts, wider halls and audio instructions at crosswalks were a result of this law. The ADA made it easier for a parent to push a stroller down the sidewalk, to cross the street guided by aural prompts or for students with dyslexia to le...

To stop police shootings of people with mental health disabilities, I asked them what cops – and everyone – could do to help

5Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

HEALTH & WELLNESS

To stop police shootings of people with mental health disabilities, I asked them what cops – and everyone – could do to help

When Joe Prude called the police on his brother, he was asking for help: Daniel Prude, who suffered from mental health problems, had run almost naked out of his Rochester, New York, house into the snow. When officers arrived, new video footage shows, the March 23 encounter quickly turned violent, and Prude died from asphyxiation under a hood officers had put over his head. Two years prior, in 2018, Shukri Ali Said of Georgia also wound up dead after leaving her house during a mental health crisis on April 23, 2018. Police, called in to help, found Said standing at an intersection holding a knife. Officers shot her five times in the neck and chest, killing her. That same month, in New York, officers answered a 911 call about a black man waving something that looked like a gun. In fact, it...

Forced sterilization policies in the US targeted minorities and those with disabilities – and lasted into the 21st century

5Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

HEALTH & WELLNESS

Forced sterilization policies in the US targeted minorities and those with disabilities – and lasted into the 21st century

In August 1964, the North Carolina Eugenics Board met to decide if a 20-year-old Black woman should be sterilized. Because her name was redacted from the records, we call her Bertha. She was a single mother with one child who lived at the segregated O'Berry Center for African American adults with intellectual disabilities in Goldsboro. According to the North Carolina Eugenics Board, Bertha had an IQ of 62 and exhibited “aggressive behavior and sexual promiscuity.” She had been orphaned as a child and had a limited education. Likely because of her “low IQ score,” the board determined she was not capable of rehabilitation. Instead the board recommended the “protection of sterilization” for Bertha, because she was “feebleminded” and deemed unable to “assume responsibility for herself” or her...

Doctors facing grim choice over ventilators told to put patients with disabilities at the back of the line

2Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

COVID-19, HEALTH & WELLNESS, Journalism

Doctors facing grim choice over ventilators told to put patients with disabilities at the back of the line

As cases related to the novel coronavirus continue to strain hospitals, doctors face difficult choices about rationing scarce medical resources like ventilators – choices that will likely determine who lives and who dies. Several states’ policies tell providers to allocate scarce resources to those most likely to benefit. For example, Washington state recently adopted a policy that favors “the survival of young otherwise healthy patients more heavily than that of older, chronically debilitated patients.” Similar new guidelines have been issued in Massachusetts as well. In several other states, existing policies that were developed in anticipation of an emergency – including pandemics – recommend rationing that prioritizes giving ventilators to otherwise healthy people who are most likely...

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

IN OTHER NEWS

To stop police shootings of people with mental health disabilities, I asked them what cops – and everyone – could do to help

After Shukri Ali Said left her house during a mental health crisis on April 23, 2018, her sister called 911 for help. Police found Said standing at an intersection holding a knife. Officers shot her five times in the neck and chest, killing her. That same month, in New York, officers answered a 911 call about a black man waving something that looked like a gun. In fact, it was a pipe. But when Saheed Vassell, a 34-year-old father with mental illness who was well known in his Brooklyn community, pointed it at police, they shot him dead. Vassell and Said are among the hundreds of people with intellectual disabilities or mental illnesses in the United States killed by police every year. According to The Washington Post, 142 of the 752 people shot by police so far in 2019 have had a mental i...

How Steep Is That Sidewalk? A Digital Map for People With Disabilities

21Aug

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

SOCIAL JUSTICE

How Steep Is That Sidewalk? A Digital Map for People With Disabilities

For disabled people, getting around Seattle is a constant challenge. This app wants to make it easier and safer. Most people know about Seattle’s rain, but they’re surprised to learn that the city, especially the downtown area, is steeper than Denver, the “Mile High City.” Seattle’s hills can render many buildings and businesses, including places like City Hall, inaccessible to people with mobility needs. For those people, apps such as Google Maps are not especially helpful because they show only the fastest way to get from point A to point B; nonmotorized routes are usually calculated based on the assumption that people will be on foot and can get into any entrance. They don’t take into account the angle of the hill needed to negotiate, whether there’s a curb cut, or whet...