selfadvocates speaking up and MAKING A DIFFERENCE

[tom]

I want to take this time to have all the self advocates speak up for themselves and make a difference in the cities let them know not to cut our programs we need very important. that they dont.

 

[sobresaliente]

Self advocates? What programs are they cutting that are very important? just curious...I'm in the dark on this one

 

[Cranberry]

Self advocates? What programs are they cutting that are very important? just curious...I'm in the dark on this one

Hello sobresaliente,

I'm not sure what Tom meant either but I'm the mood to try a guess. Hopefully Tom will be back to explain further what he meant himself eventually.

I know of two related series of events that happened in California but got little coverage lately. The gay marriage issue got most of the attention.

The American with disabilities act established a series of rules concerning the accessibility of voting places/systems to persons with disabilities. In cases when these rules are not respected, the ADA allows private individuals to sue their state/county in courts to have their rights respected. Some private citizens (who would be self-advocates in that context I guess) as well as a few advocacy groups are currently suing four counties in California for failure to make accessible voting machines available for people with disabilities in recent elections.

http://www.newmobility.com/review_article.cfm?id=850&action=browse

It's worthwhile efforts considering that since governator Arnold has taken office, many of the "welfare programs" he looked at for cuts to straighten California's financial situation are aimed at the disabled. I think programs like ADAPT that makes it possible for severely disabled individuals (like tetraplegics) to have ressources to pay home care assistants. Without these programs, these persons would have to live in long term care facilities rather than at their home.

I'm not sure about all the details. I'm not from California. It's possible the cuts were only intended to affect the bureaucracies involved behind these programs. I don't know. But it's probably a good thing some disabled persons are willing to go through the process of suing these four counties to force them to have accessible voting machines. Disabled persons should be able to take part in decisions having such huge impact on their lives after all...

It's also possible Tom referred to much simpler things when he talked about self-advocacy. I wish I was a mind reader! I know a friend who's currently lobbying local authorities to have put in place a program allowing a few carefully selected and properly trained handicapped parking placard holders
to write tickets to people illegally using these parking spots. It's something already being done in some places in Canada and the USA. It's very time consuming for the police to enforce laws about handicapped parking, so it's rarely done which of course encourages abuses...

I dunno.

Like I said, hopefully Tom will come back and give us more details about what he meant.

 

[Didymus]

a couple of years ago I went with my elderly neighbor to vote in on our school district s budget. she is in a wheel chair and even though she canstand with help she could not reach the levers because of bent over spine. Anyway since this is a small town I was allowed to go into the booth with her and read her the propistions and then pull the lever for her.