Green Party Platform:
Rights of the Physically or Mentally Challenged and Mentally Ill
The physically and mentally challenged are people who are "differently abled" from the majority, but who are nevertheless able to live independently. The mentally ill are people with serious mental problems who often need social support networks.
Physically and mentally challenged people have the right to live independently in their community. The mentally ill also have the right to live independently, circumscribed only by the limitations of their illness. These people, including the mentally ill, are their own best advocates in securing their rights and for living in the social and economic mainstream.
Current Medicaid policy forces many challenged people to live in costly state-funded institutions. Excluding these people from society alienates them; excluding them from the work force denies them the chance to use their potentials.
The mentally ill are generally viewed as valueless members of society. The diminishing funds available to provide care for the growing numbers of the mentally ill often result in their homelessness, vagrancy and excessive use of short-term crisis facilities. It also increases the necessity of placing them in long-term, locked facilities.
The Green Party recognizes the rights and potentials of the physically and mentally challenged and the mentally ill:
- Increase State Rehabilitation Department funding so that disabled people can pursue education and training and reach their highest potential. The differently abled should participate fully in the allocation decisions of State Rehabilitation Department funds.
- Aggressively implement the American Disabilities Act (ADA).
- Fund In-Home Support Services (IHSS) to allow the differently abled to hire personal care attendants while remaining at home.
- Allocate adequate funding to support community-based programs that provide out-patient medical services, case management services and counseling programs. We should provide a residential setting within the community for those who don't need institutional care, but who are unable to live independently.
- Make it easier for the chronically mentally ill to apply for and receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI).
- Mainstream the differently abled. Increase the training of teachers in regards to the needs of differently abled students.
- Discourage stereotyping of the mentally and physically challenged by the entertainment industry and the media.
- Fund programs to increase public sensitivity to the needs of the mentally ill and differently abled.