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March 6, 2006 Dear Chairman Enzi, Ranking Member Kennedy and Members of the Senate HELP Committee: The undersigned groups are sending you this letter to express our dismay at the absence of any representatives of disability advocacy organizations from your Committee’s round table hearing to examine the response of community-based organizations to the 2005 Gulf Coast hurricanes at 10 AM on Tuesday, March 7, 2006. Persons with disabilities make up well over 20% of the population in most of the areas on the Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama coasts that were hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina. According to a poll taken in September, 2005, by The Washington Post, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and the Harvard School of Public Health, of the 61% who did not evacuate New Orleans before the storm, 38% said they were either physically unable to leave or had to care for someone who was physically unable to leave. And it is not an exaggeration to say that groups such as the American Red Cross failed to respond appropriately to the needs of persons with disabilities –especially in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. When the House Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee held a similar hearing last December, with some of the same witnesses and some of the same organizations (such as the American Red Cross) represented, Chairman Jim Ramstad made certain that out of nine witnesses at his hearing, two were from the disability community. Marcie Roth and Yavonka Archaga, representing the National Spinal Cord Injury Association and the National Council on Independent Living respectively, testified on the failures of the Red Cross and other community organizations to properly respond to the needs of persons with disabilities. See the full witness list, testimony, and transcripts. The compelling testimony of Ms. Roth and Ms. Archaga underscored a disturbing record of Red Cross resistance to meeting the needs of persons with disabilities which suggests the need for fundamental reform to the Red Cross charter and/or the National Response Plan. Their testimony documents that the Red Cross:
In light of this factual record, which we have endeavored to communicate to your staff, the HELP Committee’s failure to include witnesses from the disability community on an occasion when the American Red Cross gets to present its side of the story, sends a particularly chilling message to disability advocacy organizations. Our groups have maintained longstanding and positive working relationships with HELP Committee staff that includes interacting with them on a regular basis and have communicated the gravity of the situation for persons with disabilities in the Gulf Region. This is why we cannot understand the failure of your Committee to invite even ONE disability community organization witness when your panel has SIX more witnesses than that of the House Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee. It is a priority for disability groups to ensure that our concerns about the serious problems with the American Red Cross' response and shelter access are highlighted so that they may be corrected before the next disaster. Therefore, we respectfully request that you make a modification to the panel and invite one or more representatives of the disability community to participate in Tuesday’s hearing. Failing this, we would respectfully request a meeting at the senior staff level with both the Majority and Minority staffs to ensure that our position is understood to make certain that that these concerns are given the attention they deserve and to identify remedial actions to be adopted and implemented. Thank you in advance for your prompt attention and response to this matter. Respectfully,
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