Democratic gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon is getting support from the disability community.
She met with supporters Sunday afternoon at Ontario Beach Park. It was an event designed to galvanize people in the disability community to help Nixon gather the signatures she needs to challenge Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the September primary.
During her remarks to the group, Nixon talked about the need to raise the wages paid to home health care aides in order to help people with disabilities stay in their homes rather than being institutionalized.
“We have to make sure that home health aides are not earning $10.50 an hour," Nixon said. "That is not a living wage for an individual, much less anyone caring for a family."
Colleen Flanagan, executive director and co-founder of a national organization called Disability Action for America, said a number of activists gathered last year in Washington to protest against possible cuts in Medicaid.
"Disability Action for America is here to make sure that all that work and sacrifice wasn’t for nothing," Flanagan said. "We want to take all that anger that people had last year - when we were fighting Trump care and demanding that health care remain a right for the many, not just a few - and bring it to the polls and vote. So few people vote."
Flanagan said her group is backing Nixon because they feel she will be more proactive than Cuomo in address issues of important to the disability community.
