People with Disabilities Camp Out in Berkelay@ ArnieVille TentCity Protesting Service Cuts

PRESS CONFERENCE THURSDAY, 6/24 @12 NOON

ARNIEVILLE TENT CITY- ADELINE & RUSSELL STREETS, BERKELEY


Media Advisory Contact: ArnieVille Site Coordinator, 510-684-5866

For June 24, 2010


People with Disabilities Camp Out at ArnieVille Tent City to Protest Service Cuts

ArnieVille Sleep Out – Speakers – Banners – Street Theater



WHAT:

Local disability activists protesting state budget cuts to senior and disability services begin an open-air protest on June 22, 2010. People with disabilities have pitched tents on the median strip on Adeline at Russell Street in South Berkeley in an effort to stop Governor Schwarzenegger’s proposed cuts. Organizers demand protection for California’s In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS), Medi-Cal, and other programs. They also deplore the Governor's plan to fingerprint, photograph and force unannounced home visits on elderly and disabled recipients of IHSS. “We have a right to privacy in our homes,” said Jean Stewart, 62. “This brands us as criminals without arrest or trial.”


WHERE:

Traffic island on Adeline Street at Russell Street, Berkeley


WHEN:

Thursday, June 24, Noon


WHO:

City Councilman Max Anderson; SEIU ­– United Long Term Care Workers Board Member Brenda Jackson; IHSS consumer Jean Stewart; with activist campers and their supporters, a street kitchen, and spontaneous performance art


WHY:



IHSS is a model program, saving the state hundreds of millions of dollars per year by maintaining disabled individuals in their homes. At $55,000 per person per year, nursing homes are five times more expensive than IHSS. At present, 385,074 IHSS caregivers provide services to 490,000 disabled and elderly Californians. The Governor’s budget proposes to eliminate up to 40% of IHSS funding. Cuts of this magnitude, and simultaneous cuts to Medi-Cal, would erase decades of progress and incur a huge economic, social, and moral cost. Thousands of Californian seniors and people with disabilities could end up in nursing homes. This is a violation of Olmstead, the Supreme Court decision holding that unnecessary segregation of individuals with disabilities in institutions constitutes discrimination on the basis of disability — the protest begins on the 11th anniversary of Olmstead.


Why “ArnieVille”? This protest honors the Hoovervilles of the Great Depression, shantytowns that sprang up as the nation's most vulnerable people found themselves driven into homelessness and hunger. The protective policies and programs that arose from the New Deal are under attack, by our current Governor and by many Congressional leaders as well.

“These programs are life-and-death matters and we live in a state of fear and anxiety,” says Dan McMullan, an ArnieVille organizer and director of the Disabled People Outside Project. “For years now, we’ve been assailed by a Governor intent on making the rich richer, while we get thrown under the Hummer. This year we’ve come together to resist.”

VISUALS:



Tents; banners and signs; street kitchen; people with disabilities and their personal care assistants telling their stories; policy experts and union representatives to interview.


Sponsored by CUIDO, Communities United In Defense of Olmstead, a grassroots group of people with disabilities, seniors, caregivers, and allies working to stop draconian cuts to California’s In Home Supportive Services (IHSS), Medi-Cal programs, and other critical supports for California's most vulnerable people.