The day has come! On January 31, 2013, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) implemented the 2010 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Standards for Accessible Design, including pool lift compliance. Thank you to all of the advocates who worked with tireless effort to demand civil rights for people with disabilities!

Open the guide to the 2010 standards.

Background: The American Hotel and Lodging Association (AHLA), on behalf of its members, requested an extension of the final rule on these regulations. In March 2012, DOJ granted that request and extended the deadline for the final rule to May 2012, which pushed back the final compliance date to January 31, 2013. At the same time, Congressional leaders from South Carolina and Arizona introduced legislation that would limit and weaken the ADA.

NCIL responded by joining a small coalition of disability advocacy organizations and started the campaign Stop the Attack on the ADA. We were joined by AAPD, ADAPT, the ARC, AUCD, DREDF, NDRN and United Spinal for the three part campaign, which included media outreach, direct action, and legislative advocacy outreach concentrated on leaders in Congress.  [Read more…]

Congressional leaders in the 113^th Congress have released their legislative agenda. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) ranked reauthorization of Violence Against Women’s Act (VAWA) number five on his priorities list. House Democratic leaders, including Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and others, have ranked VAWA in their top 10 priorities for the 113^th as well.

Advocates are working closely with Congressional leaders and the White House to get VAWA passed swiftly. In the first week of the new Congressional Session, bills were introduced in both the Senate and the House. S.47 by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Michael Crapo (R-ID) and H.R. 11, introduced by Rep. Gwen Moore (D-WI), both reauthorize VAWA.  [Read more…]

On January 26, the Associated Press and the office of Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) announced his plans for the future and set forth his forward-thinking legislative agenda. One major item on his policy agenda is working to significantly increase the employment of individuals with disabilities. In his classic manner, Harkin thanked Iowans for their dedication during his nearly 40 years in public service.

Although Senator Harkin still has two years left in his term, it was a surprise to many to find out that the long-time Congressional leader would not seek a sixth term in the United States Senate.

NCIL has had a long and productive relationship with Senator Harkin. The NCIL Board, staff, and membership will dearly miss his leadership in the Senate, but we also know that Senator Harkin is a life-long ally who will never abandon his commitment to Independent Living and disability rights both nationally and abroad.

Kelly Buckland, Executive Director of the National Council on Independent Living, thanked Senator Harkin for his decades of leadership.

“Senator Harkin has been a dear friend to our Movement and his contributions to our fight for civil rights will never be forgotten. His legacy as a Senator will live on in the advocacy taking place in every Center for Independent Living, in every accessible school room, and in the home of every person who escaped a nursing home. He is our Senator and we will honor his work by fighting every day to win full equality for Americans with disabilities.”  [Read more…]

Following the ADA25 Summit in Atlanta last August, the ADA Legacy Project was formed. The Project is focused on three things:

1. Helping to preserve disability history
2. Planning celebrations of the 25th anniversary of the ADA and other accomplishments of the disability community
3. Educating and raising awareness of disability history and the issues that people with disabilities continue to face today

To ensure its success, the ADA Legacy Project wants to hear from you and your network! Please take a moment to complete an online survey. What can you share about what is already going on in terms of preservation, celebration, and education? And how can you get involved?

The survey is easy and short, and should only take you a few minutes to complete. Please share this survey with your network. ADA Legacy Project would like as many people as possible to complete it.

AbleRoad, a website and mobile app for finding and rating accessible places – restaurants, shops, hotels, medical practices and many other venues – launches today! It’s a perfect mobile service for people with disabilities and their friends, family members, and caregivers.

You can access AbleRoad at the website or by using the iPhone and iPad apps. An Android App will be released next month. They are all free, and you can start posting reviews today.

Here are the links to get started:

• AbleRoad.com
• Download the iPhone or iPad app via iTunes
• Two-minute video tutorial on Facebook that shows how to use the app and website

Please share this announcement with everyone you know. Liking AbleRoad on Facebook or sharing the Facebook video are other ways to help spread the word. AbleRoad has the potential to do some great things for people and businesses all over the country.

Source: National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence Against Women

As part of Inauguration Week, the President and First Lady have called on Americans across the country to participate in the National Day of Service honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on Saturday, January 19th.

As people around the country volunteer in their communities on this National Day of Service, we also have an opportunity to speak out about the importance of the services that local domestic violence and rape crisis programs provide to victims every single day and how critical the swift passage of VAWA is.  [Read more…]

Dear Vice President Biden:

On behalf of the National Disability Leadership Alliance (NDLA) and allied organizations, we write to communicate certain recommendations and concerns from the cross-disability community for consideration in your task force’s efforts to curb gun violence. NDLA is a coalition of 14 leading national disability organizations led by people with disabilities themselves and supported by grassroots constituencies living with disabilities in all states and the District of Columbia.

In the aftermath of the horrific tragedy in Newtown, we appreciate the determination of President Obama and the work of your Task force effort to develop meaningful and practical proposals to reduce violence and address its causes. At the same time, as people with disabilities, we have much at stake in this process and its ultimate outcome. In recognition of the importance of these issues for our community, we would like to request the opportunity for representatives from NDLA to meet with you and your staff prior to the Task Force completing its deliberations. We also would like to highlight some of our specific concerns in this letter.

Many in the disability community are concerned about the ways in which people with psychiatric and neurological disabilities are characterized in the aftermath of the Newtown tragedy and other acts of violence. Unfortunately, media reports in the aftermath of recent shootings have too often relied on incorrect assumptions that psychiatric or neurological disabilities can be valid predictors of violence. Today, significant parts of the public erroneously connect people with disabilities with violent behavior. This could not be more inaccurate. Research shows that after controlling for substance abuse, even the most serious psychiatric disabilities do not pose a heightened risk of violent behavior (See footnotes 1,2).  [Read more…]

By Mike Bachhuber, Co-Chair, NCIL Mental Health Task Force

Our nation mourns last week’s massacre in Newtown, Connecticut. While we mourn, many of us have been wondering what we can and should do as a society to prevent this senseless destruction. It seems as though mass shootings have become the modern epidemic. Because they make so little sense, people throw around terms demeaning to trauma survivors and others labeled with mental illness.

We must look to history to ensure that our mourning does not lead us down the wrong path. In the labor movement, there is a saying: “An injury to one is an injury to all.” It means that when an employer acts unjustly against a worker, all workers are diminished. It is a challenge to collective action on behalf of a movement.

Since the incident, we have seen suggestions for psychological testing before gun purchase. Previously, we have seen legislation to create a registry of people who have ever been committed for forced “treatment” and limit sales of guns to those listed on the registry.  [Read more…]

There is still time to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) in the 112th Congressional Session. Advocates continue to try to convince Republican House members to include all of the provisions in S. 1925, which passed in April 2012 by a 68-31 vote. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) worked with bi-partisan leadership to create legislation that included new provisions to assist the LGBT community, the immigrant community and the Native American community. The House version, H. R. 4970, sponsored by Representative Sandy Adams (R-FL) strips away all of the new provisions. After losing her primary in Florida, Representative Adams will not return to Congress and the bill was given to House Majority leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) and Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA) to negotiate a final version.  [Read more…]

Earlier this year, NCIL embarked on an advocacy campaign to protect the Americans with Disabilities Act in the 112th Congress. In March, the United States Department of Justice delayed the compliance deadline for certain requirements of the regulations implementing Titles II and III of the ADA. DOJ extended the deadline for implementation of accessible pools for hotels across the country. At the same time, multiple Congressional leaders, such as Senators Jim DeMint (R-SC) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Representatives Mick Mulvaney (R-SC) and David Schweikert (R-AZ), introduced legislation in the Senate and House that would weaken the ADA in the area of implementation of accessibility.  [Read more…]