Protesters Seek to Close Philadelphia Nursing Home

August 26th, 2008

By Lloylita Prout
Inquirer Staff Writer

"Our Homes! Not Mental Homes!" is the message on the shirt of Marshall Brown.

Brown and eight other members of Philadelphia ADAPT, a disability rights group, began a sit-in around 9 a.m. at Philadelphia Nursing Home, 21st Street and Girard Avenue, near Girard College.

By 11, the contingent had grown to 15, most of them in wheelchairs.

"There is no justice for someone in a nursing home," read a sign held by one of the demonstrators.

The group's goal is to persuade Mayor Nutter to help find homes for 50 or so disabled residents over the next six months, then get out of the nursing-home business, according to Zachary Lewis, 26, a spokesman for ADAPT.

"We want him to downsize it and eventually close it," said Lewis, a wheelchair-bound quadriplegic.

"There are deplorable conditions, like feces on the floor, and syringes left in beds," said Lewis, who explained that he observed conditions inside while doing volunteer work.

"We'll be here 24/7," said German Parodi, 24, vowing that until their concerns are met, the protesters will sleep at the site in a tent that was set up this morning.

People with disabilities aren't sick, so they don't nursing homes, said Fran Fulton, 60, who is totally blind.

Instead, the city needs to provide affordable, accessible housing, she said.

"People can and do live independently in the city like I do," Parodi, who is also wheelchair-bound, said in a statement released before the demonstration. "I work and am a part of the Community. People deserve their chance to live and be a part of the community rather than lying in their own waste in a human warehouse."

ADAPT representatives met with a deputy mayor in January but today's protest was organized because the city has taken no significant steps, the protesters said.

Philadelphia ADAPT, is "part of a national movement ... that has been fighting for 25 years for the freedom of People with Disabilities," its announcement of the protest said.

Because "nursing homes are we