The Peachtree State has dragged its feet for more than a decade in complying with a 1999 Supreme Court ruling that demanded that Georgia stop violating the anti-discrimination clauses of the Americans with Disabilities Act in regard to forcing indigent people with disabilities to live in nursing homes.

So some 400 members of ADAPT, the 25-year-old disability rights organization known for its 1960s-style activism, marched in Atlanta last month, demanding to meet with Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue. The activists are angry that Georgia has not yet created a process that would allow indigent citizens with disabilities who want to live in the community the right to have their Medicare stipends "follow" them.

About 100 ADAPT marchers, many in wheelchairs or with braces, walkers and crutches, braved pouring rain Oct. 12 to force their way into the state capitol building where they occupied hallways on two floors in a 1960s'-style sit-in to gain access to Perdue.

Several marchers were treated very roughly by security, who kept the majority of them outside in the rain. At least one was detained but then released. The governor has agreed to a meeting between ADAPT and his chief of staff.

The1999 Supreme Court decision was called the Olmstead Decision. The ruling said that under Title II of the ADA, Georgia could not refuse to allow two mentally ill women to live in the community if they and their caregivers agreed it was feasible. Early in 2001, then-President George W. Bush signed an executive order extending anti-discrimination rights to all people with disabilities - now interpreted as including those with age-related dysfunctions - and calling upon selected federal agencies to help states implement placement in the community for their Medicaid beneficiaries with disabilities.

"It's a shame that 10 years after Olmstead, more people are going into nursing homes than before," said Bernard Baker, an organizer with ADAPT's Atlanta chapter. "Living in the community isn't a privilege, it's a civil right, and we are being denied our civil rights."

Randy Alexander, an organizer for the Tennessee chapter of ADAPT, told marchers gathered at Atlanta's Martin Luther King Center during the three-day rally that ".Medicaid law is biased in favor of forcing people into expensive nursing facilities and other institutions rather than mandating that people can choose to stay at home with the assistance they need."

He means that Medicaid funds are not disposable income in disability cases, as Social Security disability aid (SSDI) is. Medicaid does not send checks to individuals, but to the institutions that house them. In return, the state will try to collect collateral on the money to refill the public coffers. In other words, if you already have a home you can no longer live in, the state will ask you to trade it for publicly-funded care. Though that may seem fair to taxpayers, it can drive families into bankruptcy.

According to activists, Georgia is the "poster child" for non-compliance with the Olmstead Decision. Today more than 62,000 older and disabled Georgians live in nursing homes. Six thousand of them reportedly want to live elsewhere but can't. The state has no completed plan to change that. Becky Ramage-Tuttle, executive director of Disability Link and a member of Georgia ADAPT, called Georgia's attitude "an outrageous flaunting of the law."

ADAPT, which stands for American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today, has been pushing for publicly aided community-based housing for people with disabilities since the ADA became law in 1990. On March 7, 2007, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) filed the first federal bill to accomplish that. The Community Choice Act of 2007, crafted by ADAPT with the help of former Georgia senator Newt Gingrich, had 21bi-partisan co-signers and never got out of committee. This year HR 1670, the Community Choice Act of 2009, filed by Rep. Danny Davis (D-IL7), has 118 co-sponsors but is stuck in the wake of health care reform legislation that has taken priority all session.