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Take Action Alert! Tell Congress To Protect Disability Rights
Legislative Recommendations for Public Health Emergencies and Disasters
To meet the urgent and immediate needs of people with disabilities, including multiply-marginalized people, throughout the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency, Presidential Disaster Declarations, concurrent disasters and in preparation for future disasters and public health emergencies
Purposes of the Disability, Emergency and Disaster Technical Assistance Centers:`
Additional recommendations for legislative action are all drawn from the 5/24/19 report from the National Council on Disability
report to President Trump:
Preserving Our Freedom: Ending Institutionalization of People with Disabilities During and After Disasters
Require CMS to establish a process for Medicaid portability and continuity of services within states and among states, tribes and territories during disasters and public health emergencies to ensure uninterrupted health maintenance and medical care in the least restrictive environment for Medicaid recipients.
Require that all recipients and subrecipients of federal funds receive just-in-time training in the scope of their obligations to people with disabilities. This training must be developed and delivered by disability led organizations with knowledge, skills and abilities. This training must include information advising that federal funds may be revoked due to noncompliance with the obligation to receive services in the most integrated setting appropriate and that this obligation applies during disasters.
Training on the scope of the obligations of recipients and subrecipients of federal financial assistance to people with disabilities during the period of hospitalization and discharge for individuals impacted by public health emergencies and disasters, including those who have been abandoned during evacuation, sheltering, and transition to long-term housing.
Funding will be provided to disability-led organizations to deliver technical assistance to local, state, tribal, territorial and federal agencies responsible for emergency preparedness, community resilience, and disaster-related services, programs, supports, or activities to engage with national, state, and local coalitions of disability-led organizations and stakeholders.
Fund NCD to lead a review of the National Response Framework, Emergency Support Function Annexes, and Federal Interagency Operations Plans and all other applicable federal doctrine to determine any required updates to specifically address responsibility for meeting the equal access, health maintenance, safety, and independence needs of children and adults with disabilities to prevent institutionalization.
Fund an organization with expertise in IDEA, ADA, Rehab Act and Stafford Act to assess and make recommendations that disaster-impacted students with disabilities are not excluded from distance learning and returning to school with their peers and that all supports and services included on their IEP or Section 504 plan are provided without interruption. This includes providing services during school closure and upon school reopening in order to meet their individualized educational needs and to prevent institutionalization.
Fund a comprehensive assessment of with recommendations for the establishment and execution of a seamless and integrated process in Emergency Support Functions #6 and #8 to prioritize health maintenance for children and adults with disabilities and seamlessly deliver services and supports to people in the most integrated setting throughout the evacuation, sheltering, hospitalization, temporary housing, and disaster recovery. Recommendations must include actionable steps for the HHS Secretary's Operations Center and the FEMA Emergency Support Function Leadership Group to ensure the rights and needs of people with disabilities are maintained throughout the period of a declared public health emergency and disaster.
Establish a roster of federal agencies who must provide senior leadership participation and active engagement in a community-led public-private partnership with disability organizations with specific expertise and involvement in national disability inclusive emergency management policy and practice.
Authorize and appropriate funds for DHS and FEMA to provide disaster preparedness grants specifically targeted to organizations led by and serving marginalized communities, including but not limited to people with disabilities experiencing poverty; people with disabilities experiencing homelessness; women with disabilities; people of color with disabilities; and members of the LGBTQ community with disabilities.
Provide funding and quarterly reporting by DOJ, DHS and HHS to monitor and enforce the obligation under both the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act to serve people with disabilities in the most integrated setting appropriate to their needs.
Fund the FCC to reestablish its Emergency Access Advisory Committee to establish effective communication access requirements for alerts, warnings and notification, including provision of American Sign Language and other existing and new assistive technology. These guidelines should be developed in consultation and collaboration with DOJ, applying the requirements for equal effective communication access. Implementation should include monitoring and enforcement by the FCC and DOJ.
Fund immediate operations and research into solutions for existing disability service providers (such as independent living centers, paratransit service providers, meals on wheels, medical supply providers, developmental disability service providers, personal assistants, direct support professionals, birth to 3, ADRCs, AAA, sign language interpreters, peer support, respite, etc to jointly plan for, share information and meet the emergency and disaster needs of the people one or more of them maintain in their database.
Fund research on HIPAA and Privacy Act laws to determine if and how they need to be revised to allow providers to share information and resources in emergencies and disasters. This is an alternative to the use of “special” registries that repeatedly fail to provide a solution for meeting the civil rights obligations the government has to people with disabilities in emergencies and disasters.
Fund NCD to review the Federal Mass Evacuation Plan, DRRA and PKEMRA evacuation planning requirements, and any other plans that use federal funding for evacuation be reviewed by the Department of Justice, Department of Transportation, Department of Homeland Security, and other federal agencies with a role in planning, implementing and/or funding evacuation initiatives to ensure compliance with disability civil rights obligations throughout disaster response and implement all necessary corrective action immediately.
Fund HHS CMS to develop and implement within 30 days, a comprehensive federal database in collaboration with all other federal entities with admission and monitoring or funding and reimbursement obligations to ensure that all admissions to hospitals and long-term care facilities during and after disasters are monitored at every admission and discharge and that people placed are provided with the assistance needed to return to their community with all supports and services they need to regain and maintain their independence. Reporting to Congress must begin NLT 60 days and must continue quarterly until all admissions from the start of a declared emergency (including public health emergency) and disaster have returned home (or died).
Fund DOJ and other federal entities with enforcement authority to monitor and prohibit the automatic placement of individuals with disabilities in hospital and nursing home settings and direct state and local entities to immediately provide supports and services in the most integrated setting appropriate to any person who does not need this level of care. Monitor and enforce civil rights compliance with Titles II and III of the ADA regarding sheltering.
Fund DOJ, DHS, and HUD to monitor and enforce compliance with obligations for emergency sheltering in a disaster consistent with emergency sheltering requirements under the Fair Housing Amendments Act. Compliance should occur in transient and long-term emergency shelters.
Congress funds all elements of the REAADI and DRMA Acts not otherwise specified in these recommendations to ensure that the rights of people with disabilities are protected and that the needs of people with disabilities and older adults are met in concurrent and future disasters.
This includes:
Medicaid Relief for Disaster Survivors
Fund DOJ to provide pointed guidance to sister federal agencies to address the issue of outdated regulations that conflict with the Olmstead integration mandate.
Fund the University of Minnesota Institute on Community Integration University Center on Excellence in Disabilities Residential Information Systems Project (RISP) to expand their research on institutionalization during and after disasters in all states and territories to include people with all types of disabilities.
Fund DOJ to assess the equal access and non-discrimination civil rights compliance performance of the American Red Cross and other shelter and mass care providers in relation to actions resulting in institutionalization of disaster survivors and issue orders for immediate corrective actions as needed.
Fund DOJ to issue a fact sheet that defines monitoring and enforcement obligations in order to ensure compliance with civil rights requirements in the placement, as well as to track and use of federal funds associated with emergency and disaster sheltering of people with disabilities.
Fund Independent Living Centers and other affordable and accessible housing experts to provide individual and household disaster case management focused on the transition and permanent housing needs of disaster-impacted people with disabilities.
Fund Independent Living Centers and other experts on affordable and accessible housing to provide individual and household disaster case management focused on the transition and permanent housing needs of disaster-impacted people with disabilities during concurrent and future disasters.
Fund HUD to establish metrics and measure the nationwide availability of the ready supply of accessible, adaptable, affordable, and disaster-resistant permanent and temporary housing.
Fund FEMA and HUD to create systems for collecting and publishing all disaster recovery and mitigation expenditures for housing that is subject to compliance with requirements under the Rehabilitation Act, Fair Housing Amendments Act, and the ADA. This reporting systems must measure and report compliance with accessibility standards.
Fund DOJ to monitor and enforce civil rights compliance throughout all phases of disaster response to: a. Prevent abandonment on the part of government entities, such as National Guard and other recipients and subrecipients of federal financial assistance. b. Ensure compliance throughout all disaster related placement decisions made by recipients and subrecipients of federal financial assistance. c. Ensure compliance with Titles II and III of the ADA pertaining to sheltering.
Fund FEMA to explore ways to modify their Individual Assistance registration process expeditiously to curtail the incidence of institutionalization of individuals with disabilities during concurrent and future disasters.
Fund the DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties to lead and manage the 25-plus federal agencies included in Executive Order 13347, which established the Interagency Coordinating Council on Emergency Preparedness and Individuals with Disabilities (ICC), to collaborate to ensure moving forward that emergency preparedness plans incorporate the perspectives and needs of individuals with disabilities, and that barriers to access, services, and planning are removed.
Fund member agencies of the ICC to place disability experts from their agency into the field during federally declared disasters in all FEMA Joint Field Offices and Area Field Offices throughout disaster operations. These experts must be qualified by either the FEMA Qualification System or the National Qualification System to ensure adequate expertise in guiding compliance with the civil rights of disaster-impacted people with disabilities to prevent institutionalization during concurrent and future disasters.
Fund HHS to establish a process for states and territories to immediately loan and replace durable medical equipment, consumable medical supplies, assistive technology, and disability services and supports, well as disaster case management to disaster survivors with disabilities, in order to provide equal access and non-discrimination throughout emergency response to meet immediate health, safety, and independence needs.
Fund the Veterans Administration and HHS to ensure disaster-related services for veterans are integrated with all other emergency and disaster services to address the current gap in coordination between services for veterans with disabilities and services for other people with disabilities.
Fund the immediate provision of experts on reasonable accommodations for every disaster applicant until such time as applicants with disabilities can request and receive these reasonable accommodations through the FEMA application.