Sandra Schnur

Sandra Schnur (30 July 1935 - 2 February 1994) was a pioneer American disability rights leader, working mainly in New York City.

Early life

Schnur was born into a Jewish family on 30 July 1935. Her life was rendered dramatically different in 1950 when she contracted polio (age 15). The disease rendered her a quadriplegic. She had a long period of rehabilitation, including much time spent in an iron lung. After a period in residence at Warm Springs, she was home schooled to complete her high school education.

In 1952 she was evaluated by the New York Vocational Education program, and was advised to become a basket weaver. Given her great intelligence, coupled with her weak hands, she requested instead to be allowed to attend college. The program advisor bridled at her refusal to accept his recommendation, and marked her as "uncooperative".[1]

Career as activist for disabled persons

In 1963 a wheelchair-access guide to the city that Schnur wrote was published by the Easter Seals Society.[2] By then she had married Marvin Wasserman. She was employed in the Mayor's Office for the Handicapped, under Eunice Fiorito.

In 1965 the state agreed to allow her to attend college. She attended Hunter College, earning a Bachelor's degree and Master's degree in Counseling.

She became Director of the New York City Half-fare Program for the Handicapped. As one of the few disabled administrators in the Department of Transportation at this critical time, she played an important role in providing wheelchair-accessible buses and vans to nonprofit organizations, as well as the introduction of pedestrian ramps/curb cuts and lift-equipped city buses.

In the late 1970s, New York City officials decided that they no longer wished to provide direct personal assistance services for seniors and persons with disabilities, but would oversee contracts with private nonprofit vendors. By this time she had written several position papers with the assistance of Marilyn Saviola on what she called "self-direction," — severely disabled persons with disabilities had the capacity to manage their own personal assistance services, as opposed to the "medical model" where the agency is the employer and the consumer is not in charge of his or her own household. She brought together a group of individuals, which included Marilyn Saviola, Muriel Zgardowski, Vincent Zgardowski, Ira Holland, Ed Litcher, Daniel Ginsburg and Gertrude Schleier, to demand consumer-directed personal assistance services.

This group protested (with attached ventilators) outside a Board of Estimate hearing. When Schnur was about to be honored as an "outstanding" city employee by Mayor Beame in a ceremony at Gracie Mansion, home care administrators, hearing of her plan to denounce the pending vendorizing of home care services, told her that it was unnecessary because she had won her point.

Schnur believed that consumers should have even greater independence. She formulated a paper calling for a voucher program, a precursor to the Consumer-Directed Cash and Counseling project that was eventually adopted in several states, which she presented to the administration of Governor Mario Cuomo. In Schnur's voucher program, severely disabled individuals would receive one check, which the consumer could use as he or she wished to manage their home care needs, including personal care services, without restrictions. Although the program was adopted by the Governor and passed by the State Legislature, no startup funding was provided.

In 1980, following a series of meetings with consumers and Department of Social Services administrators. This group agreed to create the Client Maintained Plan, the pioneer Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program, and have it administered by Concepts of Independence, Inc.

Concepts of Independence, was a consumer organization that was founded in 1977 by Victoria Holland, Ira Holland and Ed Litcher, and formulated to be a Fiscal-Intermediary; to receive Medicaid funds and to pay salaries, taxes and benefits to personal care workers based upon information provided by the consumer. Subsequent to the death of Vicki Holland in 1979 and the adoption of the new Consumer Board of Directors in 1980, Schnur became the President of Concepts of Independence. Schnur served in this capacity from 1980 until her death from melanoma in 1994.

During this period, she was a founder of Women with Disabilities United, received appointments to the Mayor's Commission on the Status of Women and as the only consumer on the Governor's Home Care Council.

Legacy

Her husband awards an annual scholarship in memory of Schnur, the Sandra Schnur Emerging Leadership Award.[3]

Her husband also began hosting an annual memorial Seder after her death, to which large groups are invited.[4]

References

  1. ↑ Doris Zames Fleischer & Frieda Zames, The Disability Rights Movement: From Charity to Confrontation, Temple University Press (2001), ISBN 1-56639-811-8, p. 35
  2. ↑ Fleischer, p. 36
  3. ↑ http://www.the504democraticclub.org/photos_504-2006_10.html Details on the 2006 recipient of the Award, accessed 17 October 2009
  4. ↑ http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DNNYC/message/10740 Invitation to the 2009 Seder, accessed 17 October 2009

See also