Most of us don’t think a whole lot about getting dressed. Sure, we might care about our style, but the actual process of putting on clothes—pants one leg at a time, button through the button hole—is as automatic as breathing.
But imagine you only have one arm. How do you button your shirt now? What if you receive nutrition through a feeding tube implanted in your stomach? Wearing that cute dress means you can’t eat in public, lest you flash everyone in the room. Think about what the tight waistband of your jeans might feel like if you were autistic and had magnified sensitivity to touch.
For years, people with disabilities and special needs have had to improvise. Those with cerebral palsy that affected their hand coordination might replace sleeve buttons with Velcro. Parents of autistic kids would cut the scratchy tags out of their children’s t-shirts. But now, a slew of companies both new and established are creating “adaptive clothing” to meet these needs.
Target has been at the forefront, with a line of adaptive clothing for children, designed by a mom with a special needs daughter. The clothing come without tags or seams, a boon for children who find new textures irritating. Body suits are easy access for diaper changes, while wheelchair-friendly jackets have side-openings and zip-on sleeves for easier dressing. This year, the company added lines for adults with physical and mental disabilities as well. Tommy Hilfiger, best known for its high-end sportswear, just launched Tommy Adaptive, a line of clothing for children and adults with various needs, from jeans that fit over prosthetic legs to shirts with easy-open necklines. The shoe e-retail giant Zappos has also started selling adaptive shoes and clothing, from stability-enhancing sneakers to shirts with magnetic buttons. In 2015, Nike created the FlyEase, an easy-on zippered athletic sneaker inspired by a letter from a teenager with cerebral palsy who struggled with regular sports shoes. The company now makes the shoe in men’s, women’s and children’s sizes.
The Huntington businessman with Down syndrome who gifted George H.W. Bush socks he wore to Barbara Bush’s funeral will be heading to our nation’s Capitol on Wednesday to testify before Congress.
John Cronin, 22, will discuss his business, John’s Crazy Socks, to the U.S. House Committee on Small Business.
John and his father Mark Cronin run a business called John’s Crazy Socks where they donate 5 percent of their earnings to the Special Olympics. The business has become so successful that they now operate from a 6,400 square foot facility in Melville and employ 33 people, including 15 people with differing abilities.
Microsoft is committing $25 million over five years to develop artificial intelligence-powered technologies to help people with disabilities.
The aim of the new program announced at the Microsoft Build developer conference in Seattle this week is to use AI to help people with disabilities deal with challenges in three key areas: employment, human connection and modern life. Microsoft said it will award seed grants of its technology to universities, developers, institutions and others; help scale promising ideas; and work with partners to incorporate more accessibility functions in their products.
Microsoft pointed to a few Microsoft apps that have already helped people with disabilities. Microsoft Translator has been an important investment for the company as it has sought to improve the ability of its AI to help people have conversations in different languages. Last year at Build, Microsoft introduced Seeing AI, an app that uses the smartphone camera to narrate what it’s seeing.
Norman A. Smith, Co-Founder/Associate Executive Director, Project Freedom Inc., is a subject matter expert in inclusive Emergency Preparedness for people with disabilities, functional, and access needs
It is May! It is time for my annual rant as we near Hurricane Season.
“In the next decade, the probability of a major hurricane hitting the Northeast is one and a half to two times greater than in recent years. We are returning to the earlier decades where landfalls were more common,” said from Dr. William Gray, Emeritus Professor, Department of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University.
That prediction came true five years ago with Hurricane/Super-Storm Sandy slamming into New Jersey. This year’s predictions by Colorado State University’s team, now headed by Dr. Philip J. Klotzbach, is for a “slightly above” average season for 2018. This is worrisome since last year’s initial prediction was for an “average” season.
This is the 35th year that the CSU hurricane research team has issued the Atlantic basin seasonal hurricane forecast. Recently, the Tropical Meteorology Project team has expanded to include Michael Bell, associate professor in the Department of Atmospheric Science. William Gray launched the report in 1984 and continued to be an author on them until his death in 2016.
Dr. Klotzbach’s team’s initial prediction is: A total of 14 named storms with seven hurricanes and three of them becoming major hurricanes.
Last year’s prediction was 12 named storms, six becoming hurricanes, and two reaching the major threshold.
The actual number for the 2017 season was 18 Tropical Depressions turning into 17 named storms; ten of these storms turned into hurricanes with six being “major” in power and scale. Remember Hurricanes Harvey and Maria?
The prediction also estimates the probabilities of at least one major hurricane making landfall:
For the Entire U.S. coastline – 62% (Last year it was 42%)
For the U.S. East Coast including Peninsula Florida – 39% (32% last year)
With this year’s prediction in mind, it is not too early to start thinking about severe weather and being prepared for it. The first step is being more aware of both the potential threat and the “emergent” or imminent threat. Here is what FEMA recommends that people with disabilities do to address that need.
Severe Weather Preparedness for People with Disabilities—It is important to know in advance what steps you need to take to keep yourself and your family safe.
Do you know the best way to get emergency alerts and warnings? If you have a disability that affects your communication, identify the best ways for you to access emergency information in advance. What television stations in your area offer live captioning? Can you sign up for text, email, or telephone alerts through your municipality? Keep phones and communication devices charged, and always have a backup way of learning about emergencies. Some options for alerts and warnings are listed below.
Television stations with live captioning
Emergency Weather Radio (some can support strobe lights, bed shakers and text readouts)
Wireless Emergency Alerts – If you are in an area where the alerts are available and have a cell phone that is equipped to receive them, you may automatically receive a text message when an emergency alert is issued.
Smartphone applications – Many smartphone apps will provide text and audio weather alerts. You can set the locations and types of alerts you would like to receive.
Social Media – If social media is accessible for you, look for local emergency management agencies and news stations that also use social media to broadcast alerts and warnings. Save these organizations to your ‘favorites’ or begin ‘following’ them in advance.
Local warning systems – Many localities have emergency alert services that will provide alert information to you in a format of your choice. Most locations can send messages to email addresses, mobile phones (text or voice), landline phones, TTYs and Braille readers. Contact your local emergency management agency to learn what options may be available in your community.
Support network- Talk to trusted friends, family and neighbors and create a plan to notify each other of emergency information.
After determining how you will be notified of an emergency, put together an emergency plan and kit. Involve your friends, family, neighbors, support staff and anyone else that you trust to assist you. Determine how you will contact them in an emergency and what they can do to assist you. Think about where you will take shelter in your home if you need to. Also consider any services you need (personal care assistance services, dialysis services, etc.) and how you will access those services in an emergency. Talk to provider agencies about their emergency plans Learn more about preparing for severe weather at www.ready.gov/severe-weather.
Project Freedom continues to grow our housing units by partnering with several local municipalities in Mercer County as well as those from across the State. Over time we have modified our housing design and amenities to better reflect the needs and wants of our tenant consumers. Our target population has also changed from strictly the physically disabled to also include “regular” non-disabled folks and their families. So, now, we do house families with children and folks who may not be disabled. This is because our State, New Jersey, like so many other states, have recognized that inclusionary housing, that is disabled and non-disabled provides a better more natural and wholesome environment for everyone to live.
Although recognizing this kind of change, we still have continued to make our disabled population a priority. That means we continue to build and design all of our units as accessible, so that someone who uses a wheelchair can easily manage any of our apartments. Anyone can use the roll in showers, the lowered countertops and the accessible kitchens and appliances. Our overall site topography is also created so that there are no serious hills or slopes for which a wheelchair would find difficult to manage.
We also are trying to use less land as the large sites are also much more expensive to develop….more roads and sidewalk to build and maintain. So, in order to maintain our numbers, we are designing a three story building, with elevator, that can provide cost savings overall. We are hoping that these changes will enhance our building design while creating a lower overall cost.
The emphasis on cost reduction is because of the change in the new Federal Tax Law, which has reduced the tax liability for large companies and investors from 35 % to 21%. By doing so, this change has reduced the value of the Tax Credit pricing over .05 Cents on the dollar, which overall can mean we lose about $500,000 for our projects. This loss means that we need to become much more efficient, overall, when budgeting for our projects. The trick here is to figure out what to eliminate without compromising quality and valued amenities.
By building a three story building, rather than a two story, and reducing the total number of buildings from six to four, we hope to save around 20% of the cost of our project costs. These are changes that we need to do, in order to keep within our available funding. Along with these negative pressures on funding, we are seeing more and more demands from local towns to fulfill their affordable housing requirements, which is a positive change. The Affordable Housing issue is currently being dealt with in the courts, with judges negotiating the final numbers. And from what we are seeing, those towns that don’t settle along the way, are getting higher final quotes on housing than they like. This is what is fueling the current demand for affordable housing in New Jersey towns.
So, Project Freedom continues to change and adapt to the current housing market in order to continue to serve our Mission.
Born without arms, Sarasota (FL) State Senate Candidate Has Long Fought for Disability Rights
By Zac Anderson Political Editor, The Herald Tribune, April 12, 2018
Olivia Babis often had to fight for equal rights growing up as a person with a disability.
Now the Sarasota Democrat wants to take the lessons she learned through her personal advocacy and help others who are struggling. Babis, 41, filed this week to run for a state Senate seat covering Sarasota County and part of Charlotte County. She is challenging GOP state Rep. Joe Gruters for the District 23 seat.
“We need representation for the people who are falling through the cracks and feel like their voices aren’t being heard,” Babis said in announcing her campaign.
Born without arms, Babis said that in elementary school she initially was put in a special education class for much of the day with other disabled students, some of whom had intellectual disabilities.
Babis does not have an intellectual disability. Her family pushed for her to be fully “mainstreamed” with children who were not disabled. She finally was moved out of the special education class after testing as gifted in the third grade.
“The bar has been set so low for people with disabilities and I experienced that myself,” she said.
Google and a slew of startups are including accessibility information in apps to help people navigate the world if they use wheelchairs or have other disabilities.
Occupational therapist turned disability rights activist Alanna Raffel has spent her career thinking about accessibility. So for her 30th birthday last year, she turned her passion into action.
Raffel had worked with disabled clients for years in Philadelphia. It wasn’t till late 2016, however, when she became more involved in advocacy, that she learned how difficult it was to find meeting spaces that could accommodate people of varying abilities. It’s particularly challenging in an old city like Philadelphia, where many of the buildings were built more than 200 years before the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed.
Alanna Raffel enlisted her friends and family to help provide information to the accessibility app, Access Earth.
Photo provided by Alanna Raffel
So last April she hosted a mapping event in which her family and friends downloaded the Access Earth app and scoured area businesses answering questions, like whether a storefront or restaurant has a step-free entrance or an accessible restroom. The goal: find out what is and isn’t wheelchair-accessible in the Center City district of Philadelphia.
The experience was eye-opening.
“When I want to go to a bar or restaurant, I search on my phone for the menu or location,” she said. “I don’t need to check if I can use the bathroom there, or if I can reach the bar or a table. But that’s what my friends who use wheelchairs have to do.”
While laws like the Americans With Disabilities Act in the US require businesses and public facilities to make reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities, they aren’t always followed or enforced. Many older places are exempt. What this means for someone with a disability is that it’s harder to get around and know what’s accessible and what’s not.
“It’s like playing the lottery,” said Michele Lee, a 35-year-old wheelchair user living in Chicago. Lee has moved about via wheelchair for the last 15 years following a spinal cord injury from a car accident. “You never know whether train stations have working elevators or if sidewalks are free of construction or whether the restaurant I want to go to has an accessible bathroom.”
With the low 4.1% unemployment rate making it tougher for employers to hire and retain workers, CVS hires hundreds of disabled people annually and has ramped up the hiring amid the tight labor market, with the number of recruits doubling in 2017. USA TODAY
Julie Propp landed her first-ever job about 18 months ago — at age 55.
A part-time retail helper at a Kwik Trip convenience store in Marshalltown, Iowa, Propp cleans and ensures coffee cups and other items are well-stocked. She previously loaded boxes in workshops run by agencies that help disabled people but never had a traditional job because of a developmental disability.
She prefers her current gig. “It’s more money down there and more hours,” says Propp, who earns $10.90 an hour and will soon get a bump to $11.25. “Some customers are so nice.”
As we start the new year (2018), it has been over two years since the New Jersey Supreme Court took the power of making decisions regarding affordable housing, out of the hands of the COAH Board, and into the respective courts of jurisdiction. So, the question to be asked and answered is has this been a better alternative moving us forward, or has it just delayed and set the affordable housing issue back to the drawing board. My answer to that is that some progress has been made although it has taken a lot of time to get where we are right now.
A little history is in order to set the stage. Sometime in 2008, the COAH board had set out to establish its third round of rules for affordable housing. This had been done twice before, ergo first round and second round. The third round rules passed however were challenged in the courts and after several years, portions of those rules were rejected, and a portion was upheld. COAH then attempted again to revise their rules and after several false starts, a new set was proposed by the administration, who was under the judicial gun to make a decision. Finally, the COAH Board did vote to turn down those proposed rules, in spite of the courts pressure, which brought the issue before the NJ Supreme Court. That Court decided that COAH, now was defunct and not able to operate, so that all issues of affordable housing would have to be solved within the court of jurisdiction for that town. As a result, most towns filed their declaration of judgement in court, which has given them immunity from a builders lawsuit until their cases could be heard.
So, that is what has been going on for the past two years, with towns having to submit their new COAH plans which now are to go to the year 2025. ( 2015 to 2025 – 10 years ). Some towns have combined their efforts to fight these new requirements, while others have worked to settle. Overall, the majority of towns have worked to settle these lawsuits by submitting their new affordable housing plans. As a result, Project Freedom has gotten called into some of these towns for new future projects. One of those new towns is Robbinsville, coincidently where Project Freedom built it’s very first housing project. Another town is Hamilton, again where we also have a presence. Both towns recognize the demand for barrier free housing, and have been supporters of our disabled clients.
This certainly is gratifying to know that these two towns think that much of Project Freedom to include us in their new housing plans for the future. This is also a result of having the issue of affordable housing finally being settled within the structure of the court system. In the past, when the Towns would come before COAH, they could easily delay their responses and would take months if not years to address what should have been settled months earlier. And since COAH had no real police power, there was basically nothing that COAH could do to make them comply.
In 2016, there was no housing market in the United States where a person with a disability
whose sole source of income was SSI could afford a safe, decent rental unit.
The Priced Out report, co-authored by TAC and the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities Housing Task Force, documents the nationwide housing affordability crisis experienced by people with disabilities. In 2016, millions of adults with disabilities living solely on Supplemental Security Income (SSI) found that renting even a modest unit in their community would require nearly all of their monthly income. In hundreds of higher-cost housing markets, the average rent for such basic units is actually much greater than the entirety of an SSI monthly payment. There are proven solutions to the crisis – read our policy recommendations to learn more.
