[nfbmi-talk] Fw: Announcement: HELP Committee Hearing on Community Inclusion for People with Disabilities

[joe harcz Comcast]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Robin Jones 
To: GREATLAKES at LISTSERV.UIC.EDU 
Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2012 10:36 AM
Subject: Announcement: HELP Committee Hearing on Community Inclusion for People with Disabilities


The following information is forwarded to you by the Great Lakes ADA Center (www.adagreatlakes.org) for your information:

This Thursday, June 21, 2012: HELP Committee Hearing on Community Inclusion for People with Disabilities 

This Thursday, June 21st, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee will be holding a hearing on the issue of "Olmstead Enforcement Update: Using the ADA to Promote Community Integration." 

Olmstead v. L.C. is the 1999 U.S. Supreme Court case which established that under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), individuals with disabilities have the right to live and receive their services in the community, rather than only in institutional settings.  In 2010, the HELP Committee held a hearing on the state of Olmstead enforcement twenty years after the passage of the ADA. With the anniversary of the Olmstead decision coming this Friday and the ADA's 22nd anniversary next month, this upcoming hearing will provide an update on the advances and challenges to community inclusion for people with disabilities.

The witnesses for Thursday's hearing will be:
-Thomas Perez, Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Division, U.S. Department of Justice
-Henry Claypool, Principal Deputy Administrator, Administration for Community Living, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
-Rita Landgraf, Secretary, Delaware Department of Health and Social Services
-Zelia Baugh, Commissioner, Alabama Department of Mental Health 
-Ricardo Thornton, self-advocate and Special Olympics ambassador

The hearing will be held in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Room 430, beginning at 10:00 AM Eastern time. Sign language interpreters and CART will be provided in the hearing room. For those who are unable to attend, a captioned live video feed will be available at www.help.senate.gov during the hearing, and archived after the hearing.