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By Kathryn Carroll
Capital Region ADAPT
Kathryn Carroll
The first day of the Fall national action was a great reminder of the multi-level Power structures we have to confront to protect our rights. We started off our day by visiting the regional office of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). HHS has the power to addresses many of our concerns on the national level. For example, HHS could finalize the regulations to put an end to electric shock torture in the U.S., including at the Judge Rotenberg Center in Massachusetts. After HHS, we visited a State-level institution – the Colorado Division of Housing (DOH). We addressed DOH because it has the power to change the way the transition housing program is implemented across Colorado. In some cases, the State can implement better programs than the fede3ral government. In this case, DOH could go beyond the federal “floor” and devote more funding to transition housing services to get our people out of nursing homes. Finally, we ended our day at the Regional Transportation District (RTD) office. RTD manages the public transportation for the Denver. Like so many other municipalities, Denver needs to improve access to on-demand transportation like ridesharing and taxis. In one day, ADAPT confronted Power at the federal, State, and local levels to force change to ensure our people have access to community living.