Fw: A CALL TO ACTION from The Center For Self-Determination

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Ellen

Ellen Garber Bronfeld

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A CALL TO ACTION from The Center For Self-Determination

From the Desk of Tom Nerney

To our Peers and Partners:

In our responses to this invitation to comment (see below) on what will amount

to priority setting for the Administration on Developmental Disabilities (ADD),

I would first direct ADD to the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.

Justice has made it very clear that the community is called for, is the

preference of this administration and is supported by both Olmstead and the ADA.

People’s basic rights to live in the community should never be subjected to a

“vote†and if ADD did set it up that way so that comments pro and con

community living are “countedâ€, then they may themselves be responsible for

calling individual rights into question. We should not be participating in what

will essentially reduce individual rights to a popularity poll.

We have not witnessed for a very long time a Justice Department courageously

challenging arbitrary and unnecessary institutionalization for a very long

time. I would suggest a strong response pointing out the Justice Department’s

interpretation of this issue. Then of course I would suggest adding compelling

community testimony. Tom

Below is the Background on this issue :

The federal Administration on Developmental Disabilities (ADD) has been

collecting stakeholder feedback to assist them in designing how their funding

and resources will be applied over the next five years. The ADD website is

being bombarded with testimony from members of VOR (Voices of the Retarded). We

have heard that VOR is recommending people nation-wide to log onto the ADD site

and submit testimony in favor of licensed facility programs- institutions,

congregate care, etc. If you follow the below link, you will see that many

people have submitted the exact same statements. The site is designed to

“count†items which will inadvertently result in the popularity poll

mentioned above. So, we are encouraging people to preface all testimony with a

statement that indicates that this process is fast becoming a popularity contest

about basic rights.

1.. Your statement can be as brief as “I believe ALL people should have the

right to live in their own home and control who assists them via

Self-Determinationâ€.

--------------------------------------------

Due to overwhelming demand, ADD will continue to accept online testimonies on

the Envisioning the Future website through Friday, March 4th.

The website for submitting your testimony/position statement is:

http://www.envision2010.net/comment_submit.php

1.. You can see statements from other people using this link:

http://www.envision2010.net/others.php.

Tom Nerney

Center for Self-determination

tomnerney@...

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[Guest guest]

Untitled documentFYI

Ellen

Ellen Garber Bronfeld

egskb@...

A CALL TO ACTION FROM THE CENTER FOR SELF-DETERMINATION

A New Call to Action

from

The Center for Self-Determination

The Center for Self-Determination and Tom Nerney comment on the CMS proposed

rules for the Home and Community Based Waiver and encourage readers to review

the proposed changes from CMS, as well as Tom Nerney’s comments, and submit

their input directly to CMS by clicking on the link below.

To review Tom Nerney’s very critical comments click on this document:

Click on this link to submit your comments directly to the Centers for Medicare

and Medicaid:

http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=CMS-2009-0071-0302

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