Disabled advocates held a 44-hour vigil to speak to Gov. Abbott. He wouldn't meet | Grumet

The block around the Governor’s Mansion was deserted around 9:30 p.m., apart from the half-dozen protesters who peeled off from the rest of the group at Lavaca Street. A few had flashlights. Three were in wheelchairs.

Everyone assumed Gov. Greg Abbott was home for the night, tucked behind the white brick walls and black iron gates. So the question on the flyers that protesters posted Tuesday night — on walls, benches and sidewalks — was really a statement, an assertion that members of the disabled community felt abandoned by the state leader who should have the greatest empathy for their plight: “Where’s Gov. Abbott?”

The flyers showed Abbott’s face with “Where’s Waldo?” attire. Red-and-white striped shirt. White knit cap.

“You’ve got to have some fun,” said Cathy Cranston, a caregiver and one of the protest organizers, her focus never straying far from the difficulties facing hundreds of thousands of disabled Texans. “It’s so heavy.”

For eight years, members of the disability rights group ADAPT of Texas and their sister organization, the Personal Attendant Coalition of Texas, have been trying to get a meeting with Abbott, who uses a wheelchair. Their chief concern is the pitifully low pay for caregivers, which leaves some disabled Texans without the in-home care they need to prepare meals, use the bathroom, shower and handle other daily tasks so they can safely live at home.

Danny Saenz, who gets a few hours of caregiver help on weekdays in his South Austin home, told me he sometimes sleeps in his wheelchair, especially during holidays or storms, when help might not reach him for a while. He also keeps protein bars and trail mix by his bed.

“I have a phobia of being stuck in bed,” said Saenz, who has cerebral palsy. “I’m afraid no one will come get me up.”

He and other protesters have been hoping for years that Abbott would hear them out.

In 2016, they held a sit-in at the Capitol. Since then, they’ve called the governor’s office. They’ve sent countless emails. They’ve delivered a giant 3-foot-by-4-foot letter. They’ve folded their requests into paper airplanes and sent them soaring over the Governor’s Mansion gates.

Abbott’s office has responded to ADAPT in polite form letter fashion: “At this time, we must respectfully decline your invitation to meet.” (The governor’s office did not respond to my questions on the matter.)

Undeterred, about 25 protesters from Austin and El Paso held a 44-hour vigil this past week across the street from the Governor’s Mansion. They stayed on the sidewalk, careful not to block it. They were out there from 1 p.m. Tuesday to about 9 a.m. Thursday. Even with staggered breaks, most folks got less than 2 hours of sleep each night, said Josue Rodriguez, an organizer with the Desert ADAPT group from El Paso.

“We’ve waited a couple of years” for the governor’s response, he said. “What’s a couple of hours? It’s nothing.”

Nearby, Austin ADAPT organizer Bob Kafka had a bright green poster taped to his wheelchair:

“Gov. AbbottCome on outWe won’t bite”

But the group has a tenacious grip on an issue that Texas — and Abbott — can’t afford to ignore.

Texas has a massive demand for home- and community-based services, in which a caregiver comes to you instead of you going into an institution, such as a nursing home. According to KFF, a health policy nonprofit previously known as the Kaiser Family Foundation, Texas last year had 343,000 people on waiting lists or interest lists for such services. More than two-thirds of them are seeking support for intellectual or developmental disabilities, sometimes in group homes.

Yet in the face of that crushing demand, Texas ranked 49th in the nation last year in terms of offering competitive wages for home care workers, according to the AARP Foundation's Long-Term Services and Supports State Scorecard. Only Louisiana and the District of Columbia had a greater gap between what people could earn as home care workers versus other jobs with comparable or lesser skill requirements.

That same report ranked Texas 40th in the nation for support for family caregivers.

And while the Texas Legislature last year bumped up home care worker pay to $10.60 an hour, a recent survey from a coalition called Time to Care found 94% of home- and community-based service providers said that pay isn’t enough to address the workforce shortage.

Abbott "keeps ignoring us because he's not going through the issues that we're bringing up,” Kika Grajeda, a caregiver from El Paso, said in Spanish, as Rodriguez translated. “He doesn't have any trouble finding attendants.”

Advocates are frustrated these problems seem so removed from Abbott’s list of priorities, especially because addressing them should not be a partisan issue. Disabilities touch families across the political spectrum. Caring for our fellow Texans should be a matter of common cause.

So ADAPT brought the issue to the governor’s doorstep, with signs and chants and “Where’s Gov. Abbott?” flyers. Those who were physically able to travel and sit outside for all those hours did so, knowing others have difficulty leaving their homes.

They didn’t get the meeting they wanted with Abbott.

But it’s hard to imagine he didn’t hear them.

Grumet is the Statesman’s Metro columnist. Her column, ATX in Context, contains her opinions. Share yours via email at bgrumet@statesman.com or on X at @bgrumet. Find her previous work at statesman.com/opinion/columns.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas disabled advocates hold vigil at Governor's Mansion for help