TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) -- Advocates for the disabled are staging a quiet protest at the Kansas Statehouse over funding for in-home services.
They positioned empty wheelchairs outside a room where the House Appropriations Committee was meeting Tuesday. They say each wheelchair represents a Kansan who has died while waiting for in-home services.
Several protestors set up white crosses outside the Statehouse garage and handed out fliers to people driving in. Two, in black robes, represented death.
The state acknowledges that 58 disabled Kansans on the waiting list have died since December 2008. About 1,700 people are waiting for in-home services.
But 467 disabled Kansans receiving in-home services died during the same period. The state is providing those services to almost 6,600 people.