5:12

Olmstead AMA Video 5

June 22, 2022

Video Transcript


Speaker: Talley Wells

We asked what Olmstead meant to YOU and we got some incredible responses, but now we want to know- Talley, what does Olmstead mean to you?

Talley Wells: Hi everybody it is Talley Wells and it is June 2022. And I'm answering questions about the Olmstead Decision. And today's question is "We asked what Olmstead meant to YOU and we got some incredible responses. But now (the person who's asking this question) wants to know Talley (me) what does Olmstead mean to me?" Olmstead is about the people I have gotten to know in nursing homes like Harold Anderson who I advocated for after living in a nursing home for seven years to get out of that nursing home. And when he got out of that nursing home, Harold said he'd never had a bad day again because his life in a nursing home was pretty miserable. We all know the smell that you experience when you walk into a nursing home. We all know the cries and the moaning that folks who are really suffering sometimes in nursing homes experience. And Harold experienced that in three different nursing homes across the state of Georgia which is where I got to know Harold. And when he got out it was such a transformation of his life of his experience. But he also very much remembered the people who didn't get out. The people who he had gotten to know. I got to know another guy named Willy, who was, um, became a good friend of mine and Willie talked about getting on the public transportation system and just riding from one side of the city to the other when he got out of the nursing home because of how happy and how much life he was experiencing by coming back into the community. It's um my friend Andrew who, when he turned 21, aged out of Medicaid of Children's Medicaid at least, and didn't have access to the nursing services he had been receiving for his muscular dystrophy. And even though his body was actually breaking down a little bit more and he needed more supports. A lot of those supports in a different state were being taken away from him. And he was really facing the prospect of going into an institution to receive those supports and how draining and how frightening that was to him. And it means the folks I've gotten to know across the state of North Carolina who are living full and meaningful lives in the community. And how frightening it is right now because some of them can't find the direct support professionals, they need our Council Chair right now. This day, June 20th, 2022 um is in the Winston-Salem area and he has one direct support professional. His mom died last year, his grandparents are aging and are only able to provide him limited supports and he is a remarkable human being. His life is about his work is about helping other people with disabilities live full and meaningful lives in the community. And yet he is facing the real safety dangers of not having those supports with those activities of daily living, that he needs to live full and meaningful life in the community. It's about the people who right now are in state institutions, who want to live in the community. It's about all of our community in North Carolina and across the United States who take it seriously what Justice Ginsburg said when she issued the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Olmestead that people with disabilities who are in institutions are being segregated and discriminated against and they have the right to live in the community as Congress promised. When it passed, the Americans with Disabilities Act, as Congress promised when those individuals with developmental disabilities and other disabilities got out of their wheelchairs and climbed the steps of the United States Capitol and said we need the Americans with Disabilities Act because we have the right to live in the community. You know what President George H.W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act into law. And he said, you know, I always thought it was about those people that I was helping those people with disabilities to be able to have access to services, have access to the courthouse in the town hall and to not be isolated, he didn't say all of that. But he did say that they he thought it was about those people. But then when he became a person with a disability as he entered his 90s and started using a wheelchair, he really understood that the Americans with Disabilities Act was about him too, that he had the right to live a full and meaningful life in the community. Thank you!



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