♫ jazzy music ♫
Virginia: Hi, I'm Virginia Knowlton Marcus,
I'm the executive director of
Disability Rights Maryland.
Disability Rights Maryland works closely
with the disability community
to advance disability rights in a
variety of areas including access to housing,
mental health care, special education, transportation,
freedom from abuse, neglect and discrimination.
And by working closely with our clients,
we're also assisting in empowering people
so that they can advocate for themselves,
and that way we'll truly make progress
in disability rights statewide.
We believe that in bringing these stories forward
so that people can see what the impact is of
having a disability on a person's life that they
will assist us in our mission in advancing
disability rights for the benefit of all in society.
Darius: My name is Darius Thomas.
I live in Baltimore, Maryland.
A lot of people don't wanna accept the fact
that they have a disability or an obstacle,
but once you realize and accept that you do,
you can get help and you can get over the obstacle.
Amanda: My name's Amanda White and
I'm a staff attorney at the education unit
at Disability Rights Maryland.
One of the things that we see here in Maryland
is that students with disabilities are being pushed out
at much higher rates than their non-disabled peers.
I met Darius when he was referred to us
because he was experiencing push out from his school.
He had been proposed for an expulsion.
Darius: An administrator that was conducting
the hall sweep basically saw me
running late to class in the hallway,
so I tried to explain to him that he was actually
standing in front of the door my classroom was at,
so he got angry and kept threatening me,
so I got upset and spit on the floor,
and then after that it was just downhill.
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Amanda: The superintendent's designee decided to use
what's called an administrative transfer
to transfer actually Darius to eLearning,
meaning that he was going to be receiving
all of his instruction at home through a computer.
It was this waking up and staying on the computer
for nine hours.
Amanda: That's incredibly detrimental for Darius,
who really needs the opportunity
to learn with other students.
Darius: Not to justify what I did, that was
wrong either way but,
no, I didn't think it was fair.
Amanda: And so we requested a mitigation session
and were able to successfully get him
back into his high school.
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Darius had not been previously identified
as a student with a disability, so he was not receiving
any services or accommodations, so we were also able
to successfully get him an IEP plan that ultimately
allowed him to start doing better in school,
and this past spring he graduated from high school
and is now going to be college-bound this fall.
Darius: Here it is right here, man.
Gotta show it off.
Amanda: Darius, like all other students,
have a right to go to school.
And, we're very excited to see him moving forward in life
and doing great things.
Myesha: My name is Myesha Elder and I live in
Baltimore County in Maryland.
♫ slow, sad music ♫
I went into the nursing home in 2005
after a motor vehicle accident.
While I was in a nursing home, I was offered a voucher
to find housing,
and I only had 60 days to find housing.
At that time, I was paralyzed from my neck on down.
So I needed something on a one-level floor.
Lauren: I'm Lauren Young.
I'm Director of Litigation for
Disability Rights Maryland.
What Myesha taught us is that
a person that looks diligently
for accessible housing in Baltimore County
who had a voucher, was not able to find such housing.
Myesha: In the process, I hired a realtor,
I went onto GoSection8.com, I went on Craigslist,
I went on the Sun paper,
church members, family members,
no luck.
I didn't wanna risk having to be in the nursing home
for long-term care.
I didn't wanna risk not being able to be
in the community altogether.
I said, you know, I just have to pick something
because I wanted to be in the community.
The first place that I found was not accessible.
It had steps.
It was tough.
Lauren: She couldn't supervise her young children,
because she couldn't get to their bedrooms.
She could never use a full bathroom and shower
because it was not accessible.
Myesha: I just felt like, you know, I was hopeless.
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Lauren: What our organization ended up doing is we
worked with other legal non-profit
civil rights organizations
and filed a joint complaint with the
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
that challenged how Baltimore County
spent its federal funds and how it discriminated
based on race and disability.
We have a settlement where the county now has to
create 1,000 units of housing
that are gonna be affordable
and at least 10% have to be fully accessible.
Myesha: I don't know where I would be
without Disability Rights Maryland.
They have been nothing but,
I wouldn't have been able to do it without them.
I'm looking forward to being in accessible housing
where me and my family can just be happily ever after.
(giggles)
Kate: My name is Kate Anderson.
I'm an attorney with Disability Rights Maryland.
MTA Mobility is Baltimore's paratransit service,
and it is a vital part of our public transportation
for people with disabilities.
Phillip: My name is Phillip Freeman,
and I live in Baltimore.
Mobility enables me to get around
and do a lot of things that I wouldn't normally
do if I was well.
Kate: Phillip feels weak and tired and often very sick
after dialysis treatments.
In order to gain access to mobility,
you have to go through a functional assessment
if you have a physical disability.
Phillip went in for his functional assessment,
which is like doing an obstacle course,
and he had a really bad experience. ♫ sad music ♫
Phillip: She was walking so fast, and I just said,
"Hold on a minute."
I said, "I got to stop for a second."
She said, "Look, you got to hurry up and come on,
you're not the only one taking the test today."
And I told her, I said, "I feel like I'm ready to pass out."
Kate: And that's the point where the staff
finally decided that they would
take his blood pressure.
It was dangerously high.
And they finally decided to call the paramedics.
Phillip: And they recommended that at that point
that I go straight to the hospital.
Kate: So Phillip wasn't able to complete his assessment,
but as a result, mobility ended up denying him
for failure to complete the assessment.
Phillip: I was saying to myself, "How much more
more proof do you need,
outside me dying in front of you?"
Kate: It was absolutely not what you would expect
of people who are supposed to be there to
help and whose jobs are working with people
with disabilities and health conditions.
So Disability Rights Maryland took Phillip's case
and worked with Phillip and several other individuals
who were having issues with eligibility,
and we filed a class action lawsuit. ♫ uplifting music ♫
Phillip: Since we got involved in the class action lawsuit,
we've had a lot of different changes,
a lot of positive changes.
Kate: We have settled the case with MTA Mobility,
and the result of that settlement will be
a three-year monitoring period where we will work with
MTA and monitor their efforts to improve
their eligibility process.
Phillip: These people are finally starting to listen,
and starting to do what they should have did at first.
Kate: As a result of getting involved with
Disability Rights Maryland
and getting involved with this case,
Phillip has become an incredible self-advocate.
Phillip: If I had anything to do with it, I wanted
to make sure if the person
couldn't speak up for their self,
that they had somebody to talk for them or with them,
and I wanted to make sure that nobody else
would ever have to go through
something like that again,
cuz that's just awful.
It's a terrible way to treat somebody.
Ivis: My name is Ivis Burris and
I live in Baltimore, Maryland.
I had been in a nursing home for like six months,
and was coming, fastly approaching the
time for me to be discharged.
So, we was trying to figure out what to do,
how was I gonna be able to function on the outside?
Kate: She left the nursing facility without any type
of in-home support.
And came to us when she found out that there might be
services available to her.
Ivis: You know, sometimes family members get tired,
so I needed somebody from the outside to be able to
come in and help get me up in the morning,
help me to bathe, get dressed.
I contacted Disability Rights Maryland,
and they helped me out, and within
three months, literally three months,
I was on a waiver program.
The home community based waiver program.
If I wasn't on a waiver program,
I'd probably still be in the nursing home.
Kate: The nursing facility population is
the biggest population
of institutionalized people in Maryland,
and gaining access to Medicaid services
is one of the most difficult pieces
in discharging from nursing facilities.
Ivis: It's a lot of folks that are in different facilities,
and they don't even know about the waiver program.
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Kate: Ivis is one of our Sunshine Folk members.
They go into nursing facilities to let people know
about the waiver options under Medicaid
for home and community based services.
Ivis: We follow the individual through the entire process.
We just don't go get they name, and sign them up,
we follow them until they're discharged,
and then after they're discharged,
we can still follow them if they so choose.
Kate: It's all about peer support, and self-advocacy
and helping others become self-advocates.
Ivis: I'm doing it and we're doing it.
The Sunshine Folk project, excellent.
Excellent group of folks that are
making a difference in the world.
When you see somebody walk through their process
and they end up back in the community,
hands down, mm.
Nothing like it.
It's awesome.
Awesome.
Virginia: These individual client stories represent
just a snapshot of some of the recent work
we've done at Disability Rights Maryland.
We would love for you to learn more
by checking out our website at
www.DisabilityRightsMD.org.
Voiceover: Produced by Rooted in Rights.