September 9, 2005

Katrina discriminated not only against the poor and the black, but the disabled, too.

The image of a dead, discarded person in a wheelchair at the Superdome will long be with me and others with disabilities. So, too, will the story of St. Rita's nursing home.

At St. Rita's, 20 miles southeast of downtown New Orleans, 32 of the home's roughly 60 residents died in the building, The New York Times reported. The residents were not evacuated.

A lethal lack of planning for the evacuation and recovery of persons with disabilities left many to suffer a terrible end.

Nearly a quarter (23.3 percent) of New Orleans residents had disabilities, ranging from blindness to mental retardation, according to the National Council on Disability. Half of those of working age were unemployed, and many depended on Medicaid and other government assistance programs. Even if their disabilities didn't prevent them from driving, most would not have been able to afford a car -- let alone a vehicle modified for a wheelchair.

Judith Sullivan, program director of United Cerebral Palsy of New Orleans, tells me by phone of her concern for the 80 disabled people and their families that her agency served.

Sullivan worries about Nicole, a woman with Down syndrome, who has the mental capacity of a 4-year-old child. Nicole was evacuated to Tennessee. Unlike in Louisiana, Tennessee's Medicaid will not pay for her caregivers. Without this support, Sullivan worries how Nicole will survive.

The recovery effort will take years. And it will require compassion and a respect for disability rights.

Katrina survivors will need not just housing, but accessible housing. They will need accessible public transportation, access to public assistance programs and schools, as well as job training.

Fifteen years ago, the Americans with Disabilities Act, a landmark civil rights law, mandated that public buildings and services be accessible to people with disabilities.

If the ADA is enforced and the accommodation of the disabled is included in the rebuilding, the Gulf states could become the most handicapped-accessible part of our world.

If lessons are learned from Katrina, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as state and local governments, will incorporate the needs of people with disabilities into its disaster evacuation plans.

If not, we could once again be asking how our society forsook its most vulnerable citizens.

Kathi Wolfe is a writer and poet in Falls Church, Va. She can be reached at pmproj@progressive.