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Misc.
PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE: Access is for Everyone
DIRECTOR’S NOTES: A Place to Call Home
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR: Home on the Web
Legislative News: Stem Cell Starts and Stops
Program Notes: March 2006
Features
Requiring Access in the Home
United Spinal’s Accessibility Services staff works to provide education on residential accessibility requirements.
By Dominic Marinelli
Building a Universal Design Dream Home
A primer for building human-centered homes
By Rosemarie Rossetti, PhD
Making Housing History
Housing our members comfortably has been a priority of United Spinal from day one.
By Terry Moakley
Affording Accessibility Home Modifications
Loans and grants are available to help some people with spinal cord disabilities afford necessary changes [...]
Being a leader in accessibility issues is not an option, but rather a necessity for United Spinal Association. The individual shock many of us realized when we first left a VA or rehabilitation hospital only to realize we couldn’t get into our homes, or the shock that others experienced when they realized they couldn’t invite over their friend or neighbor in a wheelchair, is an ongoing challenge that United Spinal is conquering step by step.
After you’ve read this special issue on accessible homes, I’m sure you will want to explore the ideas in here more fully. If you have access to the internet, we can help you do that at our home in cyberspace.
United Spinal Association continues to advocate passage in the Congress of the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act, and to push for, and track, bills in various states nationwide that authorize and fund state stem cell research initiatives. Researchers believe that embryonic stem cells could be used to generate new cells and tissues for medical therapies, possibly including spinal cord disabilities, that impact approximately 700,000 Americans.
Last year, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act, but the Senate never considered it.
As the year 2005 came to an end, history repeated itself on stem cell research twice-in New York and [...]
PUBLIC POLICY: Coalition Reviews and Plans
In December 2005, the annual meeting of the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities (CCD), www.c-c-d.org, was held in Washington, DC. United Spinal Association is a CCD member organization, and John P. Herrion, counsel, and Daniel J. Anderson, legislative director, represented us at this event. Established in 1973, CCD is a coalition of approximately 100 national disability groups working together to advocate for national public policy that ensures the self-determination, independence, empowerment, integration, and inclusion of children and adults with disabilities in all aspects of society. The work of this coalition is undertaken by 16 task forces, organized [...]
United Spinal’s Accessibility Services staff works to provide education on residential accessibility requirements.
By Dominic Marinelli
To represent the housing needs of members of United Spinal Association, the organization’s Accessibility Services staff serves on numerous national building code committees, including participating as voting members of the American National Standards Institute’s ANSI A117.1 Standard on Accessible and Useable Buildings and Facilities Committee.
Map reprinted with permission of the International Code Council, www.iccsafe.org
A117.1 is referenced by the International Building Code (IBC), the code referenced by most of the states in the country (see states in green on map). This is important in ensuring that accessible apartments are [...]
A primer for building human-centered homes
By Rosemarie Rossetti, PhD
When my husband Mark and I, newly wed in 1995, were building our two-story “dream home,” we carefully considered the design, even to the point of making doors wide enough for a person in a wheelchair in case one of our aging relatives had to temporarily live with us. We thought this would be our retirement home. Boy, were we wrong!
Housing our members comfortably has been a priority of United Spinal from day one.
By Terry Moakley
When groups of World War II veterans with spinal cord disabilities were organizing in the New York City area in 1946 to form our predecessor association, the single biggest issue was the lack of suitable housing. The choices were to reside at the VA or military hospitals or to go live with parents, even if you were married with children. A handful of fortunate paralyzed vets had friends to construct a wheelchair-accessible house for the hometown hero, but for the most part, options did not exist.
Loans and grants are available to help some people with spinal cord disabilities afford necessary changes to homes.
By Terry Moakley
A spinal cord disability usually creates the need for specific features in the home like ramps, wider doorways, and larger bathrooms in a living space. Modifications don’t happen by themselves, so the question, naturally, is, “Does help exist out there to make such changes?” The answer is yes, but . . .
There are eligibility criteria that must be met by a person or family seeking access modifications and these requirements can vary from one state or county to another. If there is a [...]
Accessibility and sustainability co-exist in a novel New Mexico home.
By Rob Ingraham
Don and Patricia Miller stand at the entrance of their space-age home near Albuquerque, New Mexico.
(Photos by Margo Geist.)
United Spinal Board member Patricia Miller and her husband Don have combined their commitment to environmental awareness and energy efficiency with her need for wheelchair accessibility in one of the most unusual and livable houses in New Mexico, if not the country.
Diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in October 1997, Miller retired on a disability from her position as a vice president at the Talbot Agency, an Albuquerque insurance firm, in 2000. With [...]
The more residences that are “visitable” by people with disabilities, the more accessible the housing market will become.
By Terry Moakley
The term “visitability,” when applied to new construction, means the incorporation of accessibility features that enable an individual with a disability to visit another person in this type of dwelling. A close examination of a proposed bill in the U.S. House of Representatives establishing minimum visitability standards suggests that its enactment would accomplish much more.
The primary sponsor of the measure is Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Chicago, one of the few communities in the country to boast of a local visitable housing ordinance. The [...]
A historic farmhouse is turned into a 21st century showcase of accessible design.
By Lori A. Wood
These days, the instruments that make a home accessible to those with disabilities seem downright futuristic. What would happen if these innovations were incorporated into the antiquity of a nineteenth-century structure? Thanks to one man, that hypothetical scenario is now a reality.
“When I originally moved to the site in 1968, the house was divided into three apartments, and I rented one of them,” says C. David Ward, Resident Curator of Future Home, located in Phoenix, Maryland. “In the early seventies, this five hundred acre farm was sold [...]
Dr. Chester Ho wins United Spinal’s James J. Peters Award for his work with “bionic neurons.”
By Rob Ingraham
Dr. Chester Ho (center) receives a plaque recognizing his work with functional electrical stimuulation from Dr. Vivian Beyda on behalf of United Spinal’s Research and Education program. Also at the ceremony were (from left to right) Dr. Murray Altrose, Dr. Joe Francis, and Dr. Robert Ruff.
A research scientist at the Cleveland Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) Center in Cleveland, Ohio, working with tiny implantable devices known as “bionic neurons” (BIONs) is the 2006 recipient of United Spinal Association’s JamesJ. Peters Memorial SCI Scholar Award.
At [...]
Disability rights activists in Israel benefit from United Spinal’s vast experience in removing societal barriers.
By James Weisman
James Weisman, United Spinal general counsel, addresses a conference of Israeli disability advocates on a new civil rights law the Knesset passed for people with disabilities.
In 2005, the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, passed a major civil rights law for people with disabilities, amending one that already prohibits discrimination in the area of employment to include barrier removal and barrier-free design provisions.
The law states that all public places and every service provided to the public must be accessible to people with all types of disabilities. This applies [...]
By Elizabeth M. Treston
Wouldn’t it be nice if architects used stairs for decorative purposes rather than functional ones? When the term “Universal Design” actually becomes archaic? Imagine being able to go into your family and friends’ homes without the hassle. Perhaps that day is coming, but for now, get used to being tossed about like airline luggage.
When I was discharged from rehabilitation as a teenager, I lived with my mom and younger sisters in our inaccessible rent-controlled six-story apartment building in Queens, New York. We purchased a commode chair with four mini wheels that would fit through the bathroom door. My [...]
By Tamar Asedo Sherman
The first question that comes to mind when anyone receiving Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) wants to go back to work is: Will I lose my disability benefits?
The complex answer: Not necessarily.
The simple answer, the one you will hear from the experts, is that you can work part-time and keep your Social Security benefits, but you must be careful not to exceed the Substantial Gainful Activity (SGA) limit (currently $860 per month) or you lose all your benefits. But that’s not entirely accurate. You are allowed to deduct from your earnings all expenses related [...]
By John M. Williams
When David Dikert, executive director of the Assistive Technology Industry Association (www.atia.org) was escorting a media group through ATIA’s exhibit hall in Tampa, Florida a couple of months ago, he said, “One of the companies you should visit is New Zealand’s Lomak International, Limited. They have developed a unique way for people with disabilities to operate a keyboard and other environmental controls.”
I took Dikert’s advice and visited Lomak’s booth. Lomak stands for “Light Operated Mouse and Keyboard.” I watched as a woman in a wheelchair, a male arm amputee, a woman with arthritis in both hands, and several parents [...]
by Kathleen M. Muldoon
The next time you enjoy watching television, say a big “Thank you!” to Philo Farnsworth. He’s the fellow who, in 1920 at age 14, began thinking about how to capture and transmit the sounds and images of people and things in the world around him. His invention of a “dissector tube” led to production of the first television. A version of his tube is still used in televisions today.
Of course, Philo is no longer living, but he is still remembered as one of the several child inventors whose creative minds have produced inventions that have enriched all our [...]
Exercise and MS
Exercise and MS
By Ed Lash
University of Southern California scientists conducted a laboratory experiment in the early ’60s called “Operation Sacktime.” They kept healthy, young college men in bed for a period of two to three weeks after which it was found that the students had lost energy and strength, and their lungs, heart, and circulation became less efficient. Experiments have also shown that prolonged bed rest, or even chair rest, can transform a strong young person into a feeble one with weak muscles and the unsteady gait of an old man.
If inactivity can do this to robust young men in [...]
On Thursday January 12, 2006, volunteer associates from The Home Depot, KaBOOM!, and Easter Seals joined world class Paralympic athletes to build a universally accessible playground in just one day for the Easter Seals Child Development Center in Ontario, California. The playground will provide a safe and accessible play space for children of all abilities. Until it was built, the children who benefit from the Center had no place to play near the facility.
“We wanted to have a fully accessible playground in the area so that children of all abilities can be integrated and have somewhere to play, where there is access [...]
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