Welcome to week three of Action August! We’re keeping up the fight on five critical issues for the disability community. Join some or all of these important email campaigns and make your voice heard -- with no need to use the phone!

1. Get involved in grassroots advocacy to #StopTheShock at the Judge Rotenberg Center after the court ruling overturning the FDA ban. We are currently working with our partners and allies in Congress and at the FDA to create new action items, but in the meantime please check out Auteach’s guide on approaching prominent organizations to condemn the skin shock torture happening at the JRC. There is also a bill in the Massachusetts state legislature, where the JRC is located, to ban aversives like shock torture. You can send letters in support of Bill H.225. We are also asking residents of Massachusetts to contact your representatives in the state legislature and ask them to #StopTheShock.
    
2. Tell Congress to prioritize HCBS in COVID relief. The COVID-19 pandemic has further highlighted the dangers of institutionalization to our communities. We need to expand home- and community-based services (HCBS) so all disabled people can live in our communities while still receiving the care and support necessary to survive and thrive. Increased HCBS funding will expand services, increase wages, and create new jobs. Contact both your Senators and your Representative, and explain to them that they must prioritize the full $400 billion investment in HCBS in the next relief package.
    
3. Take a stand to improve SSI. In order to access the life-saving services that SSI provides, nearly 8 million – 1 in every 40 – Americans are forced to live significantly below the poverty line. We must alert our members of Congress that improvements to SSI are long-overdue and must be added to the next COVID-19 recovery package. The necessary changes include the most basic improvements to help those seniors and disabled people who rely on SSI, including increasing the maximum SSI payment to at least 100% of the Federal Poverty Level.
    
4. Work to end the sub-minimum wage. When the Fair Labor Standards Act was enacted over 80 years ago, leading to the establishment of a federal minimum wage, disabled Americans were excluded. But all disabled folks deserve equal wages for our work -- so we can’t let the Transformation to Competitive Integrated Employment Act stall in Congress! Let’s mobilize to ensure that disabled workers will no longer be paid pennies per hour.
    
5. End restraint and seclusion. Restraint and seclusion in schools traumatize students and can lead to injury or death. Disabled students and students of color bear the burden of these inhumane practices. Contact your representatives and tell them to support the Keeping All Students Safe Act (KASSA). KASSA would ban nearly all types of restraint and all types of seclusion across the country. This bill would also require schools to collect data on any use of these dangerous practices. Tell Congress to act now: pass KASSA and protect students!

There are so many ways you can contact your members of Congress! You can use ASAN’s email tools listed above, or use our scripts to call. If you don’t know who your members of Congress are, you can find out here. If you need help in making a phone call, you can use our Proxy Caller system. Want to help someone else make a call? You can sign up to be a proxy caller here.

Advocacy is an ongoing practice. We fight every day for our community’s rights, and when we work together we know we can win. Thank you so much for joining us each week this Action August! These changes can’t happen without you.

Autistic Self Advocacy Network

PO Box 66122
Washington, DC 20035

 

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