DREDF The Blog, dredf.org, August 18, 2023

On October 4, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in Acheson Hotels LLC v. Laufer, a case that will decide whether testers – disabled people who investigate compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) – can sue businesses for discrimination when their rights under that law are violated.

DREDF filed a brief in support of Deborah Laufer, the disabled person who discovered that the hotel run by Acheson Hotels was out of compliance with the ADA. You can read DREDF’s brief here.

The hotel and its supporters argue that businesses are willing to comply with ADA requirements and do so voluntarily. All a disabled person has to do if they encounter an inadvertent barrier is ask that it be removed.

“Politely.”

Acheson Hotels told the Supreme Court that “a simple phone call reminding a hotel owner of its obligations” is better and more effective than a lawsuit. “A polite phone call or email will frequently be more effective at persuading” a business to comply with the law, Acheson said. Its supporters the Retail Litigation Center and National Retail Federation similarly told the Court that businesses are “willing to make changes” to comply with the ADA and access issues can be resolved with a “quick” or “simple phone call.”

Rubbish.

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Steve Wright, StrongTowns.org, July 25, 2023

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) turns 33 on July 26. For a third of a century, this landmark civil rights legislation has made it possible for people with disabilities to access public spaces and participate in their communities, in ways they couldn’t in the past. This has had a marked effect on our built environment and the way cities operate—in ways that benefit both people with disabilities and the general public, as a whole.

For instance, curb ramps where sidewalks connect to crosswalks are a major benefit of the ADA. Curb ramps are not just for wheelchair users, as they make mobility safer for elderly people and families pushing strollers. Curb ramps are good for the economy, as well, because they make for easy wheeled delivery of the millions of products delivered via e-commerce daily.

Likewise, buses that have ramps, lifts, or boarding platforms for ease of access are not just for those who use assistive mobility devices, but they also make boarding easier for small children, senior citizens, and urban dwellers schlepping home groceries and goods because they live car-free.

Sadly, the landmark civil rights legislation that makes these things possible—and is a game changer for more than 80 million people with disabilities in the U.S. and their families—could be watered down or all but dismantled.

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LILO H. STAINTON, HEALTH CARE WRITER | AUGUST 21, 2023 | NJ Spotlight News

After more than eight harrowing months as a patient at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, 22-year-old Alex Guedes is scheduled to return home to Atlantic County in September. The house has ramps, lifts and other accommodations for Alex, who has Down syndrome, depends on a wheelchair and has complex medical issues that leave him unable to do almost anything for himself. His family will get extra state funding to pay for nursing help, but his mom Susan Coll-Guedes still expects much of Alex’s daily care will fall on her and other family members.

While each case is unique, thousands of New Jersey families, like Alex’s, are stuck in a kind of limbo as they try to get adequate services for loved ones who have disabilities and have complex medical challenges. Some are waiting for a safe group-home option when such housing capacity is already stretched thin. Others need help providing care at home, something that can be hard to find given a growing national nursing shortage. And many are frustrated by government regulations and budget limitations that they say restrict their options for accessing care.

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By Rebecca Cokley, The Nation, March 10, 2023

The disability community is reeling this week over the passing of Judith Heumann. Judy, a polio survivor, spent most of her 75 years advocating for the rights of people with disabilities, in school, in employment, in foreign policy, in the United States and globally. She served in both the Clinton and Obama administrations, and pioneered roles at the World Bank and the Ford Foundation. But the reality is that Judy, like so many disabled people, had to work until her death to maintain the quality of life that she needed to stay in the community and avoid being forced against her will into an institution or nursing home.

As Rebecca Vallas at the Disability and Economic Justice Collaborative says, “Disability is a cause and consequence of poverty.” Rules and regulations regarding Social Security, the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Workforce Investment Act, and Medicaid govern every decision people with disabilities can make about their economic status, from what college to attend to whether to marry.

Research from the National Disability Institute shows that households with a person with a disability that their ability to work have approximately $17,000 in additional annual expenses than a comparable household without a person with a disability. People with disabilities experience poverty at twice the rate of nondisabled people. The disability community experiences higher levels of homelessness, food insecurity, and unemployment than people without disabilities. And before the global pandemic, more than 10,0000 people with disabilities died in one year while waiting for benefits approval. Not surprisingly, these statistics become even more stark when incorporating race, gender, and 2LGBTQIAP identities.

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by Michelle Diament. DisabilityScoop.com, March 2, 2023

After warning for years of an impending collapse in the disability services system, advocates say that the crisis is here with a new report painting a dire picture of the situation across the country.

Programs are closing, people with developmental disabilities are being turned away and providers are failing to meet federal requirements, according to the analysis out this week from United Cerebral Palsy and the American Network of Community Options and Resources, or ANCOR.

The annual report known as the “Case for Inclusion” assesses 80 indicators of how well states are supporting individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities in the community.

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by Shaun Heasley, DisabilityScoop.com, March 3, 2023

he employment rate for Americans with disabilities has reached an all-time high, federal officials say.

Among people with disabilities nationally, 21.3% had a job in 2022. That’s up from 19.1% the previous year and represents the highest rate on record since the government began tracking such data in 2008.

The snapshot of disability employment last year comes in a new report issued by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. The agency collects data on people with disabilities in the job market as part of its Current Population Survey, which polls 60,000 households each month about employment and unemployment.

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Five months after a federal court reaffirmed that voters with disabilities are entitled to receive help with their ballots, not all local Wisconsin election officials are clear about the rules on helping residents to vote.

Opinion by Alice Wong, via CNN.com, February 22, 2023

Editor’s Note: Alice Wong is the founder of the Disability Visibility Project and author of “Year of the Tiger: An Activist’s Life.” She tweets @SFdirewolf. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. View more opinion on CNN.

CNN — Last June I spent a month in the ICU due to several medical crises that left me in a weakened state without the ability to eat or speak. When I was discharged, there were numerous urgent concerns: finding caregivers to help me with intensive health care needs around the clock, staying on top of all of my medical appointments, being able to communicate, and affording all of the out-of-pocket supplies and additional private-pay care I needed. I was fortunate to have a friend who launched a crowdfunding campaign to help with some of those out of pocket costs.

My family and I worked hard to find a set of four private pay caregivers to supplement the care they already provide for me. But with any employer-employee situation, things can happen accidentally or at the last minute that throw a wrench in an employee’s work day. When your life is entirely in the hands of an employee those wrenches can have devastating consequences. One time a caregiver was supposed to start her shift at 7 a.m. and she never showed up. I was awoken by my dad around 8:30 a.m. after having laid in my feces for over two hours. I spent that day in a vortex of rage and despair – and it wasn’t the first time this happened with one of my caregivers.

What I did not do was report my caregiver to the authorities or fire her.

I am acutely aware of the power dynamics at play between a care provider and recipient, and the devaluation and lack of investment in care work, which is rife with low wages, unsafe working conditions, exploitation and abuse.

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by Michelle Diament, DisabilityScoop.com, February 21, 2023

The Social Security Administration is looking to make a big change to the way that it determines monthly payments for people with disabilities receiving Supplemental Security Income benefits.

Currently, SSI beneficiaries can see their payments docked — often by one-third — if someone else regularly provides them with meals or groceries. But under a new plan that would change.

In a proposed rule published this month in the Federal Register, the Social Security Administration said it wants to update its regulations to exclude food from the way it calculates what’s known as “in-kind support and maintenance.” In addition, the agency intends to tweak its definition of income to allow for this exception.