Monday, April 20, 2009

Poem: Like Me

Like Me

I went to my dad and said to him,
There's a new kid who's come to my school.
He's different from me and he isn't too cool.
No, he's nothing at all like me, like me,
No, he's nothing at all like me.

He runs in a funnyish jerkyish way
And he never comes first in a race
Sometimes he forgets which way is first base,
And he's nothing at all like me, like me,
No, he's nothing at all like me.

He studies all day in a separate class
And they say that it's called "Special Ed."
And sometimes I don't understand what he's said,
And he's nothing at all like me, like me,
No, he's nothing at all like me.

His face looks kind of different from mine,
And his talking is sometimes so slow
And it makes me feel funny and there's one thing I know;
He is nothing at all like me, like me,
No, he's nothing at all like me!

And my father said, "Son, I want you to think
When you meet some one different and new
That he may seem a little bit strange, it's true,
But he's not very different from you, from you,
No, he's not very different from you,"

Well I guess, I admitted, I've looked at his face;
When he's left out of games, he feels bad.
And when other kids tease him, I can see he's so sad.
I guess that's not so different from me, from me,
No, that's not very different from me.

And when we're in Music, he sure loves to sing,
And he sings just like me, right out loud.
When he gets his report card, I can tell he feels proud,
And that's not very different from me, from me,
No, that's not very different from me.

And I know in the lunchroom he has lots of fun;
He loves hot dogs and ice cream and fries.
And he hates to eat spinach and that's not a surprise,
'Cause that's not very different from me, from me,
No, that's not very different from me.

And he's always so friendly, he always says hi,
And he waves and he calls out my name.
And he'd like to be friends and get into a game,
Which is not very different from me, from me,
No, I guess that's not different from me.

And his folks really love him. I saw them at school,
I remember on Open School Night --
They were smiling and proud and they hugged him real tight,
And that's not very different from me, from me,
No, that's not very different from me.

So I said to my dad, Hey, you know that new kid?
well, I've really been thinking a lot.
Some things are different . . . and some things are not . . .
But mostly he's really like me, like me,
Yes, my new friend's . . . a lot . . . like me.

© Emily Perl Kingsley

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

4/15/09 LA Times article on IHSS

Dear Mr Halper,

In response to your article, "Fraud haunts caregiver programs", you fail to mention many positive aspects to a program like In Home Supportive Services(IHSS). IHSS allows for literally hundreds of thousands of disabled and elderly people to live in their communities instead of in costly skilled nursing facilities, assisted living facilities, and group homes. Also in 1999 it was ruled by the Supreme Court that it was less costly for someone to live in their own community with support instead of a nursing home. The Supreme Court went so far as to say that every state in the U.S. is required to come up with a plan for more community integration for people with disabilities. It should be known that the current administration led by Gov.Schwarzenegger has certainly not implemented any part of the Olmstead Act since they've been in office. It is a known fact that the current administration, despite outcries from the providers, the recipients, as well as many concerned social service agencies has decided to allow budget cuts to this program of up to $2.00 an hour, start effective July 1st, 2009. In some cases, the providers will barely make minimum wage. Providers as well as family members cannot work when they are taking care of a dependent child or adult. IHSS allows disabled people to not just live but to work and also get educated while being in their natural environments. This is extremely ironic because the Governor himself has disabled relatives that use the IHSS program. I guess the only answer to the budget cuts is to warehouse the elderly and disabled and at the same time put all the providers out of work. This makes no sense because health care costs will continue to rise for the disabled and elderly and the unemployment rate will do the same. It was stated recently in Oakland that the state could only come up with $8 million dollars instead of the $10.5 million needed to not make these cuts. It is nice to hear that the state is spending even more money it doesn't have by launching these frivolous investigations that will one day end up killing someone who is home bound and cannot find the support they need.

Sincerely Yours,
Nicholas Feldman


Saturday, April 4, 2009

Trying to hault the American Dream in broke California

For the past three years I have been the owner of a home care business which caters to people with all disabilities, but primarily developmental disabilities. It is no surprise that the owner of a business would make a decent income while working hard to create and grow the business. The one unique aspect to this true tale, is that the owner has a developmental disability, cerebral palsy, which requires the use of the state program, Medi-cal which is connected to in home supported services. This program pays for 8 hours of my overnight care and Medi-cal pays for repairs to my medical equipment, including my power wheelchair and other needed disability support. Due to a program created by the World Institute on Disabilities, the program allows someone with a disability to make over 250% of the poverty level, and still keep vital benefits that allow people to work. I was shocked and confused when my benefits were discontinued due to a lack of knowledge about the 250% program. This has a negative effect on me because all of the sudden my world was turned upside down and I had to start to consider what my life would turn into without these benefits.
The workers who work for Medi-cal should be well versed in these programs regardless of what the income level may be. I am grateful to many people, including my book keeper who manages my financial affairs, Mr. Bryon McDonald of the World Institute on Disability and the commitment of these people in less than two weeks to get my benefits turned back on and allow me to keep working and keep paying taxes and being a productive member of society. I hope my part in paying taxes will get rid of the draconious cuts to valuable social services and other community organizations that are being effected by the state budget crisis. You would think that the Schwartzenegger administration would make a tremendous effort to take the working while disabled programs and give them the opportunity to allow all people who want to work with disabilities, an equal chance on the playing field.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

The Fight On My Career

I am doing pretty well. I feel a lot better. Due to my income level with dare to dream, my Medical has been cut off. Lorraine and I and a benefits counselor from the world institute on disability will be helping with my appeal. Lorraine has already done alot in the way of making my business zero out. This has to do with my IHSS more than my health insurance. They are focusing not on my business but more on my personal accounts. They are saying that because I make more than $2000 in monthly income, they consider it "property". So like always I am the pioneer,and I have support from many disability rights agencies, including the world institute on disability, Lorraine, and Rocio Smith (the director of area board 5) who oversees the regional centers. I am convinced that I will persevere...I don't have to pay for any of my Doctors or my medicines, but I may end up having to pay for the 8 hours of care that I receive overnight. Thank goodness that I worked enough in my 20's to be able to be on Medicare. I just really don't want to have to pay the $26K a year for my overnight care with all my bills and my rent.
Elliot had a really bad infection behind his eyes, but he will be ok. I thought for sure he was going to die. Vanessa and I were very sad. The Vet said it could be the infection orr could be cataracts. Thank goodness it was the first! He has to take medicine forever, but won't lose his sight. I am grateful!
I am also going to find out tomorrow if the state will be cutting IHSS, due to state budget cuts. I have a lot of work to do in terms of getting more clients and also staffing the ones I already have. I have always chosen the unknown path in my life and continue to fight the good fight!

Love,
Nick

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Dare to Dream Attendant Services update

Hi,

I hope all of you are well. Dare to Dream has a great staff of people and a great client base. As you know, California is up against very hard times as an employer and as an employee. Tax rates and the cost of living going up along with budget cuts to regional centers that my company has business with makes it very difficult for a small business to survive. I am looking forward to meeting with you as soon as possible to discuss any and all possibilities on ways we can help each other accomplish our goals. I know most are too pressed for money and time, so if nothing else works I am extremely interested in setting up an advisory board that would help steer Dare to Dream Attendant Services in a way that will continue to provide quality home care when needed most. Whether I have spoken to you in the past few days, or whether I have never spoken to you at all, my assistant Andrew Snook and myself would like to come to your area and discuss possible collaborations and strategies to keep Dare to Dream prosperous, while at the same time providing quality home care when people need it most.


Talk to you soon,

Nicholas Feldman
Owner/Founder of Dare to Dream Attendant Services


Nicholas Feldman
Dare to Dream Attendant Services, LLC
2488 Martin Luther King Jr. Way
Berkeley, CA 94704
(800)988-9927
Fax: (415)541-8590
website: www.daretodreamattendantservices.com
blog: http://mydreamweaver.blogspot.com/
(Assistant may answer the phone)

I always said this could be a possibility...

Nancy Eiesland Is Dead at 44; Wrote of a Disabled God

Published: March 21, 2009

By the time the theologian and sociologist Nancy Eiesland was 13 years old, she had had 11 operations for the congenital bone defect in her hips and realized pain was her lot in life. So why did she say she hoped that when she went to heaven she would still be disabled?

Skip to next paragraph
Kay Hinton/Emory University

Nancy Eiesland specialized in the theology of disability.

The reason, which seems clear enough to many disabled people, was that her identity and character were formed by the mental, physical and societal challenges of her disability. She felt that without her disability, she would “be absolutely unknown to myself and perhaps to God.”

By the time of her death at 44 on March 10, Ms. Eiesland had come to believe that God was in fact disabled, a view she articulated in her influential 1994 book, “The Disabled God: Toward a Liberatory Theology of Disability.” She pointed to the scene described in Luke 24:36-39 in which the risen Jesus invites his disciples to touch his wounds.

“In presenting his impaired body to his startled friends, the resurrected Jesus is revealed as the disabled God,” she wrote. God remains a God the disabled can identify with, she argued — he is not cured and made whole; his injury is part of him, neither a divine punishment nor an opportunity for healing.

Ms. Eiesland (pronounced EES-lund), who was an associate professor at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta, died not of her congenital bone condition, nor of the spinal scoliosis that necessitated still more surgery in 2002, but of a possibly genetic lung cancer, said her husband, Terry.

Ms. Eiesland’s insights added a religious angle to a new consciousness among the disabled that emerged in the 1960s in the fight for access to public facilities later guaranteed by the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. The movement progressed into cultural realms as disabled poets, writers and dramatists embraced disability as both cause and identity.

Pointing out that anyone can become disabled at any time, the disabled called those without disabilities “the temporarily able-bodied.” They ventured into humor, calling nondisabled people bowling pins because they were easy prey for wheelchairs.

Ms. Eiesland’s contribution was to articulate a coherent theology of disability. Deborah Beth Creamer, in her book “Disability and Christian Theology” (2009), called Ms. Eiesland’s work the “most powerful discussion of God to arise from disability studies.”

In an e-mail message, Rebecca S. Chopp, the president of Colgate University, who is known for her feminist theological interpretations, characterized Ms. Eiesland as “a, if not the, leader of disability studies and Christianity and disability studies in religion.”

In four books and scores of articles, Ms. Eiesland’s scholarship also included a much-cited book on the dynamics of churches in an Atlanta suburb. Groups like the World Council of Churches asked her to speak on disability.

For 10 years, she consulted with the United Nations, helping develop its Convention on the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities, which was enacted last year. The convention describes the disabled as “subjects” with rights, rather than “objects” of charity. It explicitly endorses spiritual rights for the disabled.

Nancy Lynn Arnold was born in Cando, N.D., and grew up on a farm nearby. Operations to remedy her birth defect began when she was a toddler. Her parents also took her to faith healers. She wrote that she was a poster child for the March of Dimes, a charity that some advocates for the disabled criticize for its appeals to pity.

After she was fitted with a full-leg brace at age 7, her father told her: “You’re going to need to get a job that keeps you off your feet. You’ll never be a checkout clerk.”

In high school, she won a national contest with an essay on the inaccessibility of rural courthouses in North Dakota. She organized a letter-writing campaign on the issue.

She enrolled at the University of North Dakota, where she campaigned for ramps into the library and accessible parking spots. She dropped out after her beloved older sister was killed in an automobile accident.

Nancy and her stricken family joined the Assemblies of God and moved to Springfield, Mo., where the church has its headquarters. She enrolled in Central Bible College, which trained ministers, and graduated as valedictorian in 1986. She became an Assemblies of God minister, but gradually drifted away from the denomination.

She became a student at Candler, where she studied theology under Ms. Chopp. Ms. Chopp remembered Ms. Eiesland’s complaining that for all Christianity’s professed concern for the poor and oppressed, the disabled were ignored.

“I looked at her and said, ‘That is your work,’ ” Ms. Chopp said.

After a stunned silence, Ms. Eiesland accepted the challenge as fodder for a master’s thesis, which evolved into “The Disabled God.” She earned her master’s degree in 1991 and her Ph.D. in 1995, both from Emory.

Ms. Eiesland is survived by her husband; their daughter, Marie; her parents, Dean and Carol Arnold; two brothers, Neal and Victor Arnold; and two sisters, Katherine Arnold and Jocelyn Gracza.

As she strove to define new religious symbols, Ms. Eiesland’s metaphors were startlingly incisive. She envisioned God puttering about in a “puff” wheelchair, the kind quadriplegics drive with their breath.