Eliminating Barriers to Daily Living

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from ATTAC/NAPAS 2002 Annual Report

When Congress enacted the ADA, it brought the promise of integration and equality for persons with disabilities. However, after more than 10 years since the act took effect, persons with disabilities continue to encounter many barriers in all aspects of their daily lives. Barriers to access, communication, transportation, and a myriad of other activities continue to hinder individuals with disabilities as they seek to integrate themselves into their communities. As the primary non-federal enforcers of the ADA, P&As continue to lead the fight in eliminating barriers that people with disabilities face. Through education, advocacy and litigation efforts, P&As are working to tear down the barriers that limit persons with disabilities. Barriers to Access

Physical barriers are observable and obvious limits to persons with physical disabilities. However, the impact that a step or a narrow doorway have is only truly known to the individual whom the barrier excludes from enjoying the accommodation available to other members of the public. P&As continue to focus on eliminating physical barriers that shut out persons with physical disabilities from basic and critical services.

The Oregon P&A represented an attorney with physical disabilities, to whom the local courthouse was not accessible. Many of the courthouse's components were inaccessible or grossly out of compliance, including the parking area, entrance ramp, expedited security entrance for members of the bar, elevators, and courtrooms. Through the advocacy efforts of the Oregon P&A this attorney can now access the courthouse to do her job and other citizens with disabilities can now tend to business at the courthouse.

• Similar initiatives to make accessible courthouses, state capitol buildings, and other buildings where government businesses is conducted were made by the P&As in California, Texas, and West Virginia.

• Additionally, the P&As in Delaware, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, and Minnesota have made strides in ensuring that individuals with physical impairments are able to access other government sponsored public accommodations, such as city and state parks, and city streets.

Through the litigation efforts of the Kansas P&A, accessibility improvements affecting over 388,000 persons with disabilities will be made to a chain of general stores throughout nine states in the Midwest.

• Similarly, the New York P&A recently filed a lawsuit against New York City's largest pharmacy chain for failure to comply with federal and city accessibility laws in most of its 170 stores in the metropolitan area. The violations affect thousands of individuals with disabilities in the city, which are prohibited from accessing many essential elements of the stores.

Barriers to Communication

The ADA mandates that public entities and private business remove barriers that hinder them from communicating effectively with persons who have hearing, vision or speech disabilities. Often this simply entails providing sign language interpreters, text telephones (TTY), materials in alternative formats, such as braille, or making minor modifications in their policies. Still, even when requested, these accommodations are frequently denied. As a result, P&As have had to do much work to ensure that public accommodations remove barriers to communication.

• The Florida P&A represented a deaf man who was denied a sign language interpreter by the Florida Commission on Human Rights, a state agency that is charged with assisting persons with disabilities with rights violations. Through the advocacy efforts of the P&A, the individual was provided interpretation services. The P&A continues to work with the agency to revise the agency's policy to incorporate the requirements of the ADA.

For years the Oregon Department of Human Services failed to provide persons with visual impairments with information and applications for vitals benefits, such as food stamps and medical benefits, in alternative formats. Despite a finding by the Office of Civil Rights that the department needed to take corrective action to come into compliance with the ADA, these accommodations continued to be denied. The Oregon P&A participated in litigation that resulted in the department implementing a policy, which provides that their applications and other written materials be available in alternative formats, such as large print, braille and audiotapes and that notification of this policy of accommodation be made known to consumers.

• In Louisiana, a man who is deaf was held in jail for 22 days without ever being provided an interpreter, not even when he was taken to court, or access to a TTY. The individual was later released and all charges were dropped. The P&A negotiated a court ordered settlement that requires the sheriff to provide interpreters, access to TTYs and inform the relevant courts of deaf inmates' need for interpreters when they go to court.

• Similar policies were adopted by a sheriffs office and bail commission in Maine, after the P&A there settled a matter on behalf of a deaf individual who was arrested and provided no sign language interpreter when he was read his Miranda rights, booked or during his bail hearing.

Additional advocacy and education efforts to provide effective communication in the criminal justice system, whether it be for those accused of a crime, trying to protect or enforce their rights before a court or simply trying to serve as jurors, have also been made by the P&As in Minnesota and South Carolina.

Other Barriers to Integration

Often the barriers that persons with disabilities face result from the failure of businesses to accommodate their disabilities. The denial of the accommodation generally stems from stereotypes and misconceptions about persons with disabilities or unfamiliarity of the laws that protect their civil rights. P&As continue to challenge discriminatory policies and educate businesses of their duty under the law.

• After 30 years of being a member of the YMCA, a gentleman with cerebral palsy was told it was no longer safe for him to attend the facility alone and that he was now required to bring a companion in order to use the service of the YMCA. As a result of the advocacy on the Connecticut P&A, the individual was allowed to continue to use the facility independently.

• The Illinois P&A successfully advocated for young girl that was denied access to a mainstream Brownie Girl Scout Troop because of her disability. Similarly, a child in Virginia was denied admission to a child care program due to her disability. However, as a result of the advocacy of the Virginia P&A, the child is now able to attend the daycare program with her siblings.

• In Tennessee, a seven year old boy who is deaf was denied admission to a summer camp when he tried to make arrangements to have his interpreter attend camp with him. Instead, he was offered admission to a segregated camp for children with disabilities. Through the advocacy efforts of the P&A, the child was allowed to attend the summer camp with typically aged and developed peers, along with his interpreter.