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From
The Baltimore Sun:
Gayle Hafner, a senior staff attorney of the Maryland Disability Law Center and a co-founder of Medicaid
Matters Maryland who was an outspoken advocate for those with
disabilities, died March 22 of a heart attack during an operation at the
University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center.
The longtime Towson resident was 60.
"A
premier civil rights attorney, Ms. Hafner sounded a voice for children
in foster care and people with disabilities," said Lauren Young,
director of litigation for the Maryland Disability Law Center.
"She used her body for civil
protest and her mind in countless legal challenges. She freed people
from facilities so they could reclaim their lives in our communities,"
said Ms. Young.
"She was a bulldog. Gayle had incredible in-depth
knowledge of Medicaid law, and she'd use that law to help people find a
better life outside of a nursing home," said Laura Carr, chair of
Medicaid Matters Maryland, which works to expand and improve Medicaid.
"She really helped people realize that there were other paths they could choose, and just because they suffered a stroke,
they didn't have to spend the rest of their lives in a nursing home
being cared for," said Ms. Carr. "She showed people that they only thing
that held them back were their own fears."
Mary Gayle Hafner —
she never used her first name — was born and raised in Hannibal, Mo.,
where she graduated in 1971 from Hannibal High School.
When she was born, doctors told her family that she would not live to adulthood. She was diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis when she was 4.
"She
spent virtually her entire life in a wheelchair," said her husband of
12 years, Crosby King, a legal assistant at the Maryland Disability Law
Center. "She was proud of being disabled."
Ms. Hafner earned a bachelor's degree in 1975 in classical civilizations at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she returned to earn her law degree in 1979.
She
was a VISTA volunteer at Sojourner Truth Women's Center, where she
staffed a grass-roots domestic-violence services center, and was later a
staff attorney for Southeast Missouri Legal Services. She was named
staff attorney in 1981 of Legal Services of Northeast Missouri.
From
1985 to 1987, Ms. Hafner was the managing attorney for Legal Services
of Eastern Oklahoma in Tulsa, where she managed a nine-county area with
two offices while carrying a full general poverty law caseload in state
and federal courts.
Ms. Hafner came to Baltimore in 1987 and was a
staff attorney for the Legal Aid Bureau for a decade. She specialized
in foster-care cases and negotiated extended reform of health care
protections to children in kinship care, and represented hundreds of
individual children in juvenile court.
She was an administrative law judge in the Office of Administrative Hearings in Hunt Valley
from 1997 to 1998, when she went to work at the Open Society Institute.
There, she developed the Kinship Power Team, a mentoring project for
kinship caregivers of foster children with disabilities.
In 1996,
Ms. Hafner and plaintiffs Dale R. Reid, a lawyer, and Jacqueline
Spencer, who was probating a will, all of whom were disabled, filed suit
in federal court with help from the Public Justice Center to make
Baltimore's two Circuit Court buildings fully accessible to the
disabled.
Two years later, U.S. District Judge Andre M. Davis
ordered state officials to make the Clarence M. Mitchell Jr. Courthouse
and Courthouse East on Calvert Street accessible to those who were
disabled.
She was a staff attorney for the Legal Aid Bureau in
Towson for a year before joining the Maryland Disability Law Center in
2001, where she remained until her death. She was an indefatigable voice
in support of better care and access for those with disabilities living
in Maryland.
"Gayle was extraordinary and one of a kind, and
already we're missing her," said Virginia Knowlton, executive director
of the Maryland Disability Law Center. "She was an incredible advocate
for people with disabilities, and she had the unique ability to lead
people with disabilities."
In 2003, she co-founded Medicaid Matters Maryland with Lorraine Sheehan.
Ms. Knowlton said Ms. Hafner was a familiar figure in the legislative halls of Annapolis.
"She
was instrumental in getting state officials and policymakers to get
them to understand the impact of their decisions. She was the real
voice, and that voice will be missed," she said.
"She was
incredibly multifaceted, dynamic, energetic and was everywhere. Gayle
always saw the big picture and had the view of how policies connect,"
said Ms. Knowlton. "She lived and breathed this her entire life."
She
was a member of Not Dead Yet, a disability advocacy group. She was the
co-founder of the Maryland chapter of ADAPT, an advocacy group that
addresses transportation issues for the disabled in the Baltimore area
and led to the introduction in 2001 by the MTA of 80 "talking buses"
that helped blind bus riders.
"ADAPT's slogan was, 'Free Our
People,'" said Ms. Young. "She wanted people to get their freedom back.
She was a powerful person who kept her eye on the prize and that the
barriers would come down that kept the disabled from access."
"She energized us all to do better, expect better, and achieve more milestones," said Ms. Carr.
Ms. Hafner enjoyed attending Baltimore Symphony Orchestra concerts.
The Towson resident was a member of the Bolton Hill Synagogue, where services were held Tuesday.
In
addition to her husband, Ms. Hafner is survived by her mother, Frances
Hafner Roberts of Stroudsburg, Pa.; two brothers, James A. Hafner Jr. of
Marathon, Fla., and Robert C. Hafner of Summit, Mo.; and a sister, Jennifer H. Poole of Stroudsburg, Pa.
