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A University of Connecticut-sponsored forum addressed a critical lack of accessible transportation for people with disabilities nationwide.
By Jayne Kleinman
The Problem
• According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, in 2003, over half a million people with disabilities said they never leave home because of transportation difficulties.
• The National Organization on Disability (NOD) reports that nearly one third of Americans with disabilities have inadequate access to transportation, compared to 10% of those without disabilities.
• Sixteen percent of people with disabilities cite inadequate transportation as a major problem for them compared to 4% of people without disabilities.
An increasing number of citizens [...]
Congress has appropriated funds to seed programs for accessible transportation.
By Terry Moakley
Funded at $78 million nationally this year and proposed to increase to $81 million in the President’s budget for next year, the New Freedom initiative is now a permanent section of the federal transportation law. It is geared specifically to support local transportation services not required by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), with emphasis on improvements that enable persons with disabilities to travel to work or to and from employment preparation programs.
In the House-Senate Conference Committee Report that accompanied the bill, the following list provides examples of [...]
By John M. Williams
The idea of sitting in my office and taking online or distance learning classes adapted to my schedule and location has long had a strong appeal. I like the idea of eliminating the commute to campus, the hunt for a parking space, the mad rush to class among a swarm of students through a labyrinth of buildings. I recall my college days of taking tests in a crowded room, distracted by the fidgeting of other test takers, and I envision the online advantages of taking tests by myself at my familiar desk in my own home.
Before taking [...]
ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY: A Treasure Trove of Information on Assistive Devices
Let’s say you’ve just completed a physical or vocational rehabilitation program, and you’re ready to pound the pavement to find gainful employment. Before you begin, you may want to insure that you are connected. A place to learn about special equipment you may need is United Spinal’s assistive technology database, located at www.usatechguide.org. Once you are there, choose an equipment category like “computing,” where you will find adaptive input devices or voice-activation input/output systems. Or if you select the “communications” category, you can review plenty of information on adaptive [...]
U.S. Justice Department Sues New York for Failing to Improve Its Voting System
On March 1, the United States Department of Justice sued New York State for failing to upgrade its voting system as required by the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA). New York is the first state the federal government has sued for violating the law. HAVA was enacted to address the severe problems that came to light during the 2000 election debacle.
Letters to the Editor may be sent by e-mail to action@unitedspinal.org, or to Action Editor, United Spinal Association, 75-20 Jackson Heights, NY 11370-1177. Please keep letters to 300 words or fewer. Letters may be edited for clarity or space.
The key to conducting a successful job search is to focus, not on what you can’t do, but on what you can.
By Tom Scott
Individuals with disabilities face numerous barriers to employment, including accessibility, transportation, and health care issues, lack of training and education, and discrimination. Other factors include limited job opportunities and a lack of employment agencies that assist in the placement of people with disabilities into the workforce. The psychological effects of these barriers may cause fear and anxiety and prevent many people within the disabled community from seeking employment.
You really are entitled to reasonable accommodations from employers if you need them.
By Kleo King
Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is not designed to mandate employment of people with disabilities. Rather, it is designed to give people with disabilities equal access to the job market. It is important to keep in mind that employers have the right to hire the best qualified candidate for a position. It is also important, however, to consider that a qualified employee or applicant with disabilities is one who can perform the essential functions of a job with or without reasonable accommodations. [...]
Denise Mc Quade turned a passion for independent travel into a career.
By Donna Fredericksen
Getting from one place to another-independently- was always a cause that Denise Ann Mc Quade could rally around. Independent travel means so much to her, in fact, she’s made a career of it.
Mc Quade, who was diagnosed with polio at age 3 and a half, now works as Public Information coordinator in the paratransit division of MTA/New York City Transit, which serves a population of 14.6 million people in the 5,000-square-mile area fanning out from New York City through Long Island, southeastern New York State, and [...]
Opportunities are growing for people with disabilities to learn job skills and find permanent employment.
By Jennifer M. Rodriguez
Paralympian skier Beth Livingston got her job at Home Depot as part of its program to employ Olympic and Paralympic athletes. (Photo by Sean Sperry, courtesy of The Bozeman Daily Chronicle)
The Home Depot
The Home Depot (www.homedepot.com), through the U.S. Olympic Committee’s Olympic Job Opportunities Program (OJOP), allows U.S. Olympic and Paralympic athletes and hopefuls to work part-time in exchange for full-time compensation and benefits.
“The program helps to accommodate the athletes’ busy training and competition schedules while offsetting our expenses,” says Elizabeth [...]
By Beth Livingston
Just months before I was injured in a car accident (see Growing Pains, “Chronicles of a Young Woman Coping with Paralysis,” in the January Action), I had relocated to Bozeman, Montana, from the East Coast. I was still settling in, so to speak, when I caught a Med-Jet to the trauma center in Chicago in August 1989. Returning home to Bozeman in November was bittersweet.
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’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 [...]
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 [...]
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