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The Americans with Disabilities Act, 20 Years Later

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was signed into law on July 26, 1990.  This civil rights law is meant to enable people with disabilities to participate fully in their communities, to compete effectively for jobs, and to gain more complete access to services available to the general public.

The ADA was signed into law by President George H.W. Bush, who said: “This act is powerful in its simplicity. It will ensure that people with disabilities are given the basic guarantees for which they have worked so long and so hard: independence, freedom of choice, control of their lives, and the opportunity to blend fully and equally into the rich mosaic of the American mainstream.”

Twenty years later, how are providers of service complying with this law?

There is a document dated January 26, 1995, posted on the website of the National Council on Disability, entitled: The Americans with Disabilities Act: Ensuring Equal Access to the American Dream.  This report sought to measure the progress of the implementation of the ADA, five years after it was enacted.  The report noted that overall, impressive progress had occurred.  After listing the positive accomplishments, it then outlined areas where compliance had not yet been achieved.  Some of these areas of noncompliance are worthy of note, 15 years later: 

• There is a particular need to provide persons with disabilities and the general public with basic information regarding the ADA.

• This basic information campaign as well as other ADA-related information efforts should be produced in accessible formats and should also be available in several languages.

• Particular outreach efforts should be made to ensure that individuals from racial, cultural, and ethnic minorities and youth are informed of the ADA’s provisions. There is a national need for outreach to minority communities, people with low incidence disabilities, and people living in rural areas.

• There is a continuing lack of affordable legal resources for people with disabilities, which was cited as one of the major factors impeding the proper implementation of the ADA. 

• More information is needed [in the workplace] regarding chemical sensitivity and environmental illness issues. 

• More information is needed on accommodating people with mental health issues and cognitive disabilities in the workplace. 

• Police departments should make greater use of sign language interpreters during arrest processes with deaf individuals. 

• Procedures for obtaining interpretative services for non-English language deaf people or those who require tactile interpreters need to be improved. 

• More “front-end” planning needs to take place in order to avoid the costs of retrofitting facilities for access. 

• Training needs to occur at the highest levels of an organization, if real change is to occur. 

• Businesses need to provide consistent accommodations such as materials in alternative formats for people who are blind, interpreters for people who are deaf, etc., rather than the present situation in which either no accommodations are readily available or the quality varies widely from one setting to another. 

• Businesses should hire sign language interpreters on their regular staff, just as they hire a certain number of Spanish speaking individuals (etc.) to meet customers’ needs. 

• Doctor’s offices and clinics need to utilize assistive listening devices. 

• Clarification is needed in order to ensure that covered entities understand that they are required to make reasonable accommodations under Title III, no matter how large or small their business is or how many employees they have. 

• People with disabilities themselves should be included in judgments concerning what constitutes compliance. 

• Software developers need to ensure that new programs and products are accessible for people with disabilities.  For example, the rapid growth of icon-driven programs (such as Windows) is effectively shutting blind and visually impaired individuals out of their jobs. 

• The Justice Department or the Access Board should develop standards for making information systems kiosks more accessible. 

• Clarification is needed on whether repaving roads constitutes an alteration which triggers the requirement to install curb cuts. 

• Extensive training is required for the staff of paratransit systems regarding the accurate and timely processing of requests for services.
  

The full report can be read here: The Americans with Disabilities Act: Ensuring Equal Access to the American Dream.

What does this mean?  While the ADA has certainly given people with disabilities greater access and independence, there is clearly still a long way to go. The peer advocates of Independent Living Centers still have much work to do.

"The true test of a just society is whether everyone is able to participate. Everyone has the right to be heard, and each of us must be empowered to give a voice to our particular needs and concerns."

– Norman Rice, former Mayor of Seattle. 

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Hudson Valley Restaurant Provides Accessibility for People with Visual Impairments

by Elizabeth Holodak

Mobile Benefits Counselor

Everyone wants to dine out comfortably, but for those of us who are disabled this is not always easy. Restaurants may claim they are accessible, but this usually means that their parking lot has accessible spaces. Inside, their menus may not be accessible to all customers because of the type and/or size of print used.

Bonefish Grill Restaurant located off Route 9 in Poughkeepsie has shown to be accessible to individuals with visual impairments. This restaurant offers a Braille menu, which allows individuals with visual impairment to have the independence of reading their own menu, rather than depending on another person to read it for them. In recognition of this accessibility, the Bonefish Grill Restaurant was praised at TRI’s 2009 celebration of the Americans with Disabilities Act held at the Henry A. Wallace Center at the FDR Presidential Library and Home located in Hyde Park.

Taconic Resources for Independence has been collaborating with a local college on a project to evaluate other Poughkeepsie area restaurants, with the goal of working with them to become more accessible to individuals with visual impairments.

If you believe your favorite restaurant shows a high degree of accessibility, please contact Elizabeth at e.holodak@taconicresources.org and tell us why your restaurant deserves recognition. Your entry may become the topic of a future blog post.

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ALMOST ACCESSIBLE VOTING

By Bill Quinn, MSW
TRI Volunteer

It is Election Day 2008. Like most Americans, I went to the polls to cast my vote for the next president and several other important races. I had done this on previous election days of course. However, I thought this race was going to be a little different.

Dutchess County New York had just received voting machines that were specifically designed for persons with disabilities. So, instead of squeezing my chair into a tiny voting booth like I usually do, I thought I would give the new machine s try. The machine had a computerized screen displaying the ballot and an audible voice that read the ballot aloud to the voter through headphones. Wow! I thought. This should be a lot easier and more private. After all, the curtain in the old voting booth barely covered me. Before I began my new voting experience, I was told by one of the poll workers that I was the first person to use the machine. I was a little concerned but not really troubled by this. After all, I never minded being a trailblazer and I figured someone had to give this thing a shot. After completing the initial tutorial on how to use the machine, I was ready to begin the voting process. I breezed through my selections thinking how much easier and better this accessible voting machine was than the old method.

Once this was done, the machine prompted me to wait a few minutes while the ballot printed. Instead of printing the ballot, the machine flashed a message on the screen saying that it required the assistance of a technician. The same message was repeated audibly over and over again through my headphones. Oh No! I thought. Now What! I promptly got the attention of the poll worker who had helped me to set it up. He called another poll worker to come over but they were both pretty lost. At least 10 minutes went by as they tried to solve the technical difficulty. Meanwhile, my cab driver was waiting to take me home. Several of my coworkers who had come to document my voting experiences were also waiting. The poll workers tried again to fix the printer but to no avail. I was offered a paper ballot but refused. I wanted my vote to count and was fearful that a regular paper ballot filled out by hand would not be counted the same way as conventional ballots. Finally, after quite some time and feeling some frustration, I went to a regular voting booth to cast my ballot the old fashioned way. What a waste of time and energy!

I guess the moral of the story is that accessible voting machines are good and are necessary in order to ensure that Americans with Disabilities are fully enfranchised. However, election officials and poll workers must ensure that the machines work properly and that the people involved know how to deal with technical difficulties as they arise. Otherwise, accessible voting technology will be of little use to those who need it.