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Walk N Roll For Spina Bifida
Lacey, WA
Mar 20 2010 -
Abilities Expo SoCal
Los Angeles, CA
Apr 09 2010 -
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New ADAPT Campaign: ‘Defending Our Freedom’
Responding to harsh budget cuts by state governments around the country, the disability rights group ADAPT has announced a new campaign to rally the disability community to preserve vital programs and services and demand that the federal government enforce the rights of people with disabilities to live independently.
In announcing the “Defending Our Freedom” campaign, ADAPT said, “Eleven years ago, in its Olmstead decision, the Supreme Court said that Americans with disabilities have the right to live in the most integrated setting. Yet today, states are responding to budget shortfalls by drastically cutting home and community-based services.” Meanwhile, “the federal government, which is charged with protecting our civil rights and enforcing the law, is simply standing by — silent.” The campaign seeks to organize the disability community to: demand that the Obama administration enforce the ADA and Olmstead; file complaints with the U.S. Justice Department and the Civil Rights Office of the Department of Health and Human Services on behalf of individuals who have been forced into institutions or been denied community services as a result of state budget cuts; and document efforts at the state level to fight cuts in services. To collect individual stories, ADAPT has set up a blog at www.defendingourfreedom2010.blogspot.com. “We have so far posted information entries from 23 different states,” says Montana ADAPT organizer Marsha Katz. “In addition, I have personally had many people forward articles to my personal e-mail, and then we forward them to the Defending Our Freedom site.” Noting that President Obama has christened 2010 the Year of Community Living, Katz adds, “our overarching national demand is that the Department of Justice and HHS/OCR ... hold states accountable for following the law. That means standing up for the real people across this country who are continuing to be hurt, and who are continuing to be deprived of their freedom and civil rights.” More information about the Defending Our Freedom campaign can be found at www.adapt.org. 
Funeral Home Settles Discrimination Suit
To settle a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a funeral home in Newberg, Ore., will pay $62,500 to a former employee who was fired after she began using a wheelchair.
According to the suit, Attrell’s Newberg Funeral Chapel violated the ADA when it refused to allow Barbara Jackson to continue working as a secretary. The company had claimed that Jackson, an amputee who had worked for the company for 21 months, could not carry out the duties of the job if she could not walk. Attrell’s also claimed that having an employee who used a wheelchair might make their grieving clients feel bad. “Attrell’s fired Ms. Jackson based on its own stereotypes about what a person who uses a wheelchair can and cannot do,” A. Luis Lucero Jr., director of the EEOC’s Seattle field office, told the Salem News. “Such stereotyping harms people with disabilities, but it also hurts employers because they lose out on talented and qualified employees.”
Demonstrators Blockade Mall
In another ADAPT action, activists in El Paso, Texas, protested outside the Cielo Vista Mall Feb. 20 to draw attention to the lack of access. “There’s no sidewalk, there’s no pathway and people are forced into moving traffic,” Joe Lara, one of the protesters, told KTSM Channel 9 News in El Paso.
To prove their point, the demonstrators marched across the mall parking lot and blocked entrances with their wheelchairs. To illustrate what would happen if one of them had been hit by a car, one protester threw himself from his chair and crawled on the ground with fake blood on his face. The activists said they were demonstrating not just on behalf of wheelchair users, but for nondisabled people who also were at risk at the mall. Said protester Josue Rodriguez, “We could get run over, we could get hurt — not only us, but any pedestrian.”
People in the News: Tory Cavalieri
Tory Cavalieri has always been a daredevil. Before the 2004 motorcycle accident that left him with a T12 spinal cord injury, Cavalieri, 50, competed as a motocross racer and was a NASCAR-licensed stock car driver. For Cavaleri, the decision to undergo a rare procedure to treat pressure sores was easy, and the risk seems to have paid off.
A year after undergoing an innovative nerve graft transplant procedure, Cavalieri has restored feeling in his posterior, and the acute pressure sores which had kept him bedridden for years have healed and not recurred. Having sensation makes Cavalieri hopeful that new sores won’t form. “I can get up and go places now,” he says. “We are absolutely thrilled with Tory’s results,” said Dr. Andrew Elkwood of the Plastic Surgery Center in Shrewsbury, N.J., who performed the two-hour procedure. “The success of this procedure can prove to be life-changing for tens of thousands of people worldwide.”
Access: Hotels.com
For disabled travelers, hotel booking websites can be a huge source of frustration. Finding cheap lodgings on short notice is not that difficult, but how do you know if they are accessible?
On Feb. 16 one of the largest such sites, Hotels.com, announced new features enabling users to search for rooms based on specific needs, such as wheelchair access and roll-in showers. When an accessible room is reserved, Hotels.com will contact the user to confirm the reservation or, if a room is unavailable, find a similar room at the same rate at another hotel. Candy Harrington, editor of the Emerging Horizons travel newsletter and an expert on accessible travel, is cautiously optimistic. “I think it has great potential,” she says. “But keep in mind, it may be a moot point, as the DOJ is currently thinking about requiring all properties and third party reservation services to do this.”
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