From kevyn@KSUVM.KSU.EDUSat Jul 8 16:58:53 1995 Date: Sat, 8 Jul 1995 16:51:02 -0500 (CDT) From: Kevyn Jacobs To: "Kansas Queer News [KQN]" Subject: (ATCHISON) Discrimination Complaint Lodged Against Treatment Center FROM THE NEWS-TELEGRAPH MAY 26-JUNE 8, 1995 ======================= KANSAS CITY MAN LODGES DISCRIMINATION COMPLAINT by Lisa Marie Neff KANSAS CITY-Richard Adams needed help. After a string of bad news-- notification that he is living with AIDS and notice that he lost his job-- Adams ended three years and eight months of sobriety and again started drinking alcohol. In February, Adams made arrangements to return to Atchison Valley Hope, the treatment center in Atchison, Kansas where he had sought help before. Valley Hope operates thirteen treatment centers in the Midwest in Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Nebraska. Atchison Valley Hope is located about forty miles northwest of Kansas City. Adams says he found the thirty-day treatment program effective the first time he enrolled. The second time, he says he was forced out. Adams claims that when he called Valley Hope in February and told business manager Charles Pinkman his situation, Pinkman said the flu was going around the center and suggested Adams try another treatment program. But Adams wanted to go to Valley Hope. So he borrowed $4,800 from his mother and checked himself into the center. "In the first group counseling session, I mentioned all this stuff that has happened and that it was the reason I relapsed," Adams says. "I was received by the group very well but after group, when everyone left but the counselor, we closed the door. The counselor told me my sexual orientation is the result of my low self-esteem. I was upset. I walked out....Later, some of the clients started calling me a faggot." Adams says he felt uncomfortable and signed himself out of Valley Hope. He started drinking again and decided he had to go back. When he tried to return, Adams says Pinkman told him, "You can come back if you make a firm commitment never to mention again that you are Gay and you have AIDS....We're not equipped to handle you people but we've had some of you here before." Adams says he knew Valley Hope could not help him if he was not allowed to talk openly about himself. So instead of returning, he requested a refund and enrolled in a residential recovery program with Mainstream, a Gay-friendly center at a twenty-acre site outside Kansas City. At News-Telegraph press time, Valley Hope had not refunded the $4,800 and Adams was awaiting official word on complaints filed with the Kansas Advocacy and Protection Agency for violating the public accommodations provision in Title Three of the Americans With Disabilities Act. "My primary purpose is not to get any financial reward but to warn others not to go to Valley Hope because they are abusive in my view," Adams says. Pinkman and other administrators at Valley Hope did not return telephone calls from the News-Telegraph. ========================================================== Permission granted by the News-Telegraph for distribution to the KQN email list (KQN@casti.com), and archiving in the Queer Resources Directory (QRD) on the Internet (http://www.qrd.org/qrd). For News-Telegraph subscription information (published twice a month), please call 1.816.561.6266, or email: newstele@aol.com ==========================================================