The disability rights group ADAPT has created a tent city Sept. 15 at offices of Housing and Urban Development in D.C. (HUD). They are calling their protest DUH city, in a flip of the HUD acronym. ADAPT has established a news outlet about housing issues and people with disabilities, The Duh City Times. A video on the DUH city Web page explains the protest.Here's the group's release:
Solidarity! The Oxford Dictionary defines this oft used term as " noun: Unity resulting from common interests, feelings, or sympathies."
How do we gain those feelings or sympathies for others? One way is to experience or participate in the privations or hardships experienced by others.
Solidarity in Unions is gained by joining the picket lines, some snow, wind, rain or blazing heat. Want solidarity with the starving millions of the world? Try skipping a few meals and donating the savings.
ADAPT (American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today) in solidarity with our brothers and sisters who are languishing in nursing homes and whom are in fact homeless have decided to likewise render ourselves homeless through the creation of DUH city—a homeless tent city.
Established in the shadows of the Housing and Urban Development Offices and built on a foundation of HUD's broken promises, we expect that DUH city will highlight the plight of nursing home inmates—why we consider those in nursing-so-called homes homeless, what HUD has failed to do about this and what they can do about it.
Along with the founding of DUH city we are proud to announce the establishment of the DUH City times. Published daily throughout our protest we will provide background information on the incarceration of thousands of our brothers and sisters in nursing homes for the crime of having a disability. We will also provide updates on our daily protests. We hope this newspaper will go beyond enlightening and will serve as a call to action to Congress and all who care about individual freedom and dignity.
