Accessibility in the News — 10/1/2021.

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Feature Stories

Justice Department Resolves Lawsuit Alleging Disability-Based Discrimination at 38 Multifamily Housing Complexes in North Carolina

September 28, 2021 | Source: DOJ

DOJ Resolves Lawsuit Alleging Disability-Based Discrimination at 46 Multifamily Housing Complexes in North Carolina and South Carolina

September 28, 2021 | Source: DOJ

The Justice Department announced that Mills Construction Company Inc. and several related entities have agreed to pay $275,000 to settle claims that they violated the Fair Housing Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by failing to build 38 multifamily housing complexes in North Carolina with required accessible features for people with disabilities. As part of the settlement, the defendants also agreed to make extensive retrofits to remove accessibility barriers at the complexes…

National News (U.S.)

Mission Accessible: How One Designer Wants to Bring Change to the Industry

September 23, 2021 | Source: Campaigns & Elections

Raquel Breternitz wants to close the big gaps that exist between campaigns and groups in the civic space and the 26 percent of Americans who have some type of disability and need extra consideration when being engaged. In fact, she believes that campaigns need to think about accessibility “super holistically,” meaning that their strategy should stretch beyond the design of their websites, digital ads and printed materials to include events that are wheelchair accessible and include an ADA section…

Bemidji-based Able To Vote is working to increase voter turnout in disability community

September 24, 2021 | Source: Star Tribune

For Grace Gouker Littlefield, the 2021 election isn’t just about the candidates. It’s about who gets to vote for them. After about six years of working for tech startups on the West Coast, Gouker Littlefield moved back to her hometown of Bemidji in 2018 “to be useful to my community.” She found her calling as founder and executive director of Able to Vote, (abletovote.org), a nonpartisan nonprofit working to increase voter turnout among eligible voters with disabilities by giving them the resources, support and information they need to cast their ballots…

These MetroWest spots have special programs for people with sensory needs

September 28, 2021 | Source: MetroWest Daily News

Organizations across MetroWest are working to make everything from breweries to museums more welcoming to people with autism and sensory sensitivities. Here are some places where outdoor activities, shopping and dining are designed to accommodate those with sensory needs. Horse SenseAbility in Sherborn offers programs with horses that have been specifically selected for therapeutic purposes. Programs include therapeutic riding, a mentoring program for children in foster care, and Wildstar Wranglers, a vocational program for 18- to 25-year-olds with autism…

How Manufacturing Can Spearhead Diversity and Inclusion Through Accessibility Technology

September 28, 2021 | Source: Manufacturing Business Technology

While the manufacturing industry has progressed in its recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, 2.7 million professionals are predicted to exit the manufacturing workforce through retirement over the next 10 years. Recent studies have shown that 84% of manufacturing executives agree there is a talent shortage in U.S. manufacturing due to young professionals avoiding the industry as a career destination. As the talent shortage continues to grow, consequences that span outside of the manufacturing landscape could become a reality for all…

Pearl River Community College professor improves accessibility accommodations for disabled colleague

September 28, 2021 | Source: WJTV

Pearl River Community College’s welding instructor Jason Pitts built a weather canopy with his advanced welding class for disabled Electronics Technology instructor Sam McNease. McNease has faced daily challenges unloading her wheelchair from her truck during bad weather days. She said a typical unload takes a minimum of five to eight minutes, but it takes longer in bad weather. She said she has often taught her classes while wet due to not having a proper covering near her tech class in the Technical Building…

Walmart employees with disabilities, Latinx workers take center stage in DEI report

September 28, 2021 | Source: HR Dive

Latinx workers and employees with disabilities took center stage in Walmart’s mid-year report on Culture, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, released Sept. 24. Highlights included Walmart’s five-year, USD $20 million commitment to food security and economic advancement for Black and Indigenous Canadians. Notably, in a breakdown of hourly-to-management promotions, 44.61% were women, 38.8% were people of color and 17.38% were Latinx. (Notably, representation of women in hourly and management positions dropped from last year.)…

Overcoming barriers to digital inclusion for older persons

September 28, 2021 | Source: Devex

Connect everyone by 2030. This beautifully audacious goal set forth by the U.N. Secretary-General, António Guterres, in the 2020 Roadmap for Digital Cooperation highlights the critical nature of digital inclusion for accomplishing many, if not most, of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. The past 18 months of the global pandemic have both heightened our clarity around this imperative, and also shown how far we have to go in achieving it. “During the pandemic, digital technologies have kept societies functioning and people connected…

C.A. Reins-In Actions Under Unruh Civil Rights Act

September 27, 2021 | Source: Metropolitan News-Enterprise

Div. Two of the Fourth District Court of Appeal has affirmed a judgment in favor of Omni Hotels in an action brought by a blind woman who claimed a violation of the Unruh Civil Rights Act because she could not book a room via the hotel chain’s website using a screen reader, with the justices holding that there’s no breach of the act based on lack of access where the plaintiff had no actual intent to utilize the services. San Bernardino Superior Court Judge David Cohn viewed such an intent as a requisite of an Unruh Act lawsuit based on the denial of a public accommodation due to a disability…

Deaf Awareness Month: an opportunity to learn

September 27, 2021 | Source: Plano Magazine

Many people may not know that September is Deaf Awareness Month. Author and digital marketing pro Meryl K. Evans admits that there are a lot of “awareness months” that may often get overlooked. Still, she hopes that people will take the time to learn more about the issues those designations were meant to highlight. Evans was born hearing-free, which she says is just another way to say profoundly deaf. Based on advice from experts at the time, she grew up orally. That means she took lots of speech therapy to learn how to read lips and speak…

Accessible Training Widens the Talent Pool, Increases Profits, and Values Human Dignity

September 29, 2021 | Source: ATD

Corporate learning has seen some major shifts throughout time. From apprenticeships centuries ago, to Henry Ford’s “Sociological Department,” to the introduction of Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operations (PLATO) and computer-based learning in the 1960s, training the next generation of workers has been refined into a more than $220 billion industry that nowadays uses mobile apps, games, social media, and virtual reality. As technology has evolved along with learning, tools have emerged to help individuals who may not fit the standard corporate mold to take part in corporate training…

FCC slaps ViacomCBS with $3.5M fine over Pluto TV closed captions

September 29, 2021 | Source: Fierce Video & Bloomberg Law & Variety & FCC & tvtech & CMA Trends

The Federal Communications Commission’s Enforcement Bureau settled an investigation with Pluto Inc. and its parent company, ViacomCBS Inc., regarding violations of FCC accessibility rules, according to a statement from the Commission. In addition to paying a $3.5 million civil penalty, Pluto Inc. agreed to enter into a compliance plan to ensure that non-exempt video programming that Pluto streams over the internet includes closed captioning in compliance with Commission rules…

Researchers find potential way to treat macular degeneration

September 30, 2021 | Source: CBS19

Researchers think they have found a potential way to treat a poorly understood form of age-related macular degeneration. According to a release, the University of Virginia School of Medicine found that damaging DNA builds up in the eyes of patients who have geographic atrophy. This form of macular degeneration is currently untreatable, and like all forms of the disease, can cause blindness. However, researchers think it may be possible to treat the disease with common HIV drugs or another, safer alternative…

Deaf Colorado Man Sues Police, City of Idaho Springs, and Board of Commissioners After Being Tased and Unlawfully Imprisoned

September 29, 2021 | Source: Baller Alert

Two Idaho Springs officers shoved a deaf Colorado man to the ground during an arrest; despite his attempts to inform them, he couldn’t comprehend their demands. In the lawsuit, Brady Mistic, who is deaf, claims he was unlawfully imprisoned for four months on Sept. 17, 2019. He plans to sue Officers Nicholas Hanning and Ellie Summers, as well as the city of Idaho Springs and the Clear Creek County Board of Commissioners. According to the lawsuit filed last month, the incident occurred shortly after 7:30 p.m. Mistic was accused of running a stop sign before pulling into a laundromat’s parking lot…

Golden Apple: Determined to be a teacher despite being blind

September 30, 2021 | Source: 1011 Now

Determination, no matter what the circumstances, can take you far…even landing you a dream job. Chase Crispin was born blind, but that didn’t stop him from getting a position as music teacher for Lincoln Public Schools. 10/11 surprised Mr. Crispin at Scott Middle School during lunch. He was modest, and worried about food in his teeth! That’s how Crispin views life. He keeps it lighthearted and he keeps it real. Shelly Lyon is a vocal music teacher with Crispin. She said whenever you’re around Crispin, you are laughing about something or he’s making a joke and smiling…

International week of the deaf: 8 famous people who overcame hearing impairment

September 30, 2021 | Source: Money Control

Anyone who has even an ounce of love for classical music, would swear by Beethoven’s piano sonatas, concertos and Fidelio. Who’d believe that such splendid music was created by a man who started losing his hearing in his 30s and was completely deaf by age 45. It is said that Beethoven taught himself to ‘hear’ with his body. He used a wooden drumstick between the teeth and supported it on the piano’s resonance box to feel the vibrations. At the age of 31, he wrote to a friend and doctor Franz Gerhard Wegeler: “In the last three years, my ears have been weaker and weaker…

Disabled mothers-to-be face indignity

September 30, 2021 | Source: The Los Angeles Times

It was just after 10 a.m. on a bustling, bleary-eyed morning at the AltaMed clinic in Pico Rivera, and Dr. Marie Flores was fighting to keep herself composed. The waiting room was full. A line snaked out the front door into the parking lot. Flores raced between exam Room 26 and her office in a blur of cobalt-colored chrome and ultramarine fabric, her face glowing with effort and a high dose of estrogen. “No no-shows today,” the doctor sighed, a portrait of the artist Frida Kahlo spying over her shoulder as she stashed the fertility drugs in her desk…

How does workers’ compensation affect Social Security Disability?

September 30, 2021 | Source: WSET

What are the social security disability benefits by state?

September 30, 2021 | Source: AS

Depending on your situation, workers’ comp can have different effects on one’s social security disability. Assuming you have a workers compensation wage award in Virginia, and approval for social security disability payments, there can be an “offset” or reduction of your disability benefits based on the amount of your workers’ comp payments. Under Social Security Administration rules, you may collect a combination of workers’ comp wage benefits up to 80% of your “average current earnings” (ACE)…

Disability Advocates Seek Inclusion in SEC Board Diversity Rules

December 30, 2021 | Source: Bloomberg

The SEC is warming up to calls to include people with disabilities in diversity reporting requirements for public company boards. Allison Lee, the longest-tenured Democratic commissioner on the Securities and Exchange Commission, said there’s merit to counting individuals with disabilities as diverse members of boards, as women and ethnic minorities often are. “It’s not an easy analysis. But it does seem to me potentially that disability is a group that makes a lot of sense to include,” Lee told Bloomberg Law in a recent interview…

Study: Just 1 Out of 5 People with Disabilities Works From Home. Millions Still Do Not Have the Option

September 30, 2021 | Source: Newswise

Working from home could revolutionize job opportunities for people with mobility impairments, chronic medical conditions, and other disabilities, but a towering obstacle still stands in the way more than 18 months into the pandemic. A report by the Rutgers Program for Disability Research finds a disproportionate number of people with disabilities work in places like factories, restaurants, and retail stores, where remote work is typically not an option…

Jack Fact — According to the World Health Organizations, over 1 billion people are estimated to live with some form of disability. This corresponds to about 15% of the world’s population, with up to 190 million (3.8%) people aged 15 years and older having significant difficulties in functioning, often requiring healthcare services.

Hit The Road Jack — Inclusive Luxembourg: Accessibility and mobility & London’s step free walks perfect for anyone with mobility issues & Accessible Travel Press

International News

NT Specialist Disability Accommodation project helps people with disabilities find accessible homes

September 25, 2021 | Source: ABC- Australia

After spending more than a year living in a Northern Territory hospital, Doris Jirlu is relieved to have a place to call home. Ms Jirlu had a stroke in August last year, which left her paralysed down one side of her body. The 56-year-old was then forced to spend 14 months living in the rehabilitation ward at Palmerston Regional hospital, about 21km south of Darwin, due to a lack of suitable housing. “I didn’t like the hospital,” Ms Jirlu said. “Just seeing four walls … they never took me out [of the ward]…

VPD breaks barriers with Deaf and Hard of Hearing community

September 24, 2021 | Source: Vancouver Police Department- Canada

Vancouver Police are breaking down barriers with a new partnership that aims to improve communication between police and people who are Deaf and Hard of Hearing. “We know it can be stressful and frustrating when a person who is Deaf, DeafBlind, and Hard of Hearing experiences barriers to inclusion, so when the folks at Wavefront Centre for Communication Accessibility approached us with a way to improve communication, equity, and inclusion with their community, we jumped at the chance to partner,” says Sergeant Steve Addison…

Isle Madame locals chase the ace — and the dream of an accessible community park

September 25, 2021 | Source: CBC- Canada

People in a rural Nova Scotian community have been working for two years to build a new, accessible recreation park they hope will help them improve life for older residents and ensure younger people keep calling the area home. About 4,000 people live on Isle Madame, an Acadian-rooted fishing island off the southwest coast of Cape Breton Island. Brandon Boudreau lives in Petit-de-Grat among a small, active, aging community. The 28-year-old grew up on the island and is now raising his own young children there…

Access to ICT for persons with disabilities is still a dream

September 25, 2021 | Source: Daily Monitor- Africa

On the International Day of Persons with Disabilities (IDPD) 2019, the Collaboration of International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa called upon governments and communication services providers in East Africa to take decisive steps to enable meaningful usage of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for persons with disabilities. Although there have been great advancements in the development of specialised assistive technology such as digital hearing aids, more general-purpose technologies such as ordinary computers, tablets and smartphones…

Dundee V&A: Sensory Friendly Days in effort to boost accessibility

September 25, 2021 | Source: The National- Scotland

Not all barriers to participation are visible, however. It is estimated that one in every seven Scots are neurodiverse, meaning that information is processed differently by their brains. In practice this can lead to overwhelming sensory stimulation in busy situations, such as days out to bustling tourist traps. Trying to allay the fears of neurodiverse individuals is a significant challenge for all the nation’s museums, the majority of which are eager to welcome the maximum number of visitors possible in order to begin offsetting the cataclysmic losses incurred during lockdown…

Eight Church Street outlets to become disabled friendly

September 26, 2021 | Source: The Times of India

Come September-end and eight popular spots on Church Street like Amoeba Bowling Alley, restaurants in Barton Centre and pizza joints will be revamped to have entrances and seating that will be accessible to Persons with Disability (PwD) and the elderly. The driving force behind the makeover is Prateek Khandelwal, a wheelchair-bound man. His startup, RampMyCity, founded in 2018, will provide simple and impactful infrastructural solutions — like ramps and grab bars — for inclusion of people facing a physical challenge…

Colourful road crossings like £23,000 Leicester ones are ‘hazardous’ for disabled and elderly says Green Party

September 26, 2021 | Source: Leicestershire Live- UK

Arty pedestrian crossings like the ones in Leicester city centre post a ‘risk’ to elderly and disabled people, say the Green Party. A row has erupted over ‘colourful crossings’, pedestrian crossings which feature artistic patterns rather than blocks of white stripes. The opponents say they are ‘dangerous’ for people who suffer from disabilities, neurological diseases or are unsteady on their feet. But Leicester City Council has said the crossings meet all accessibility regulations…

Universities have bias towards hearing and speaking students, BDF finds

September 27, 2021 | Source: Access and Mobility Professional- UK

New Business Disability Forum research has found that many of the UK’s top universities may be preventing students who cannot hear or speak from applying for courses by providing a ‘telephone only’ approach to communication. The research, ‘Different communicators need not apply: Why the pre-admissions experience matters for non-hearing and non-verbal learners applying to university’ reviewed the admissions and contact information on the websites of 100 universities featured in The Guardian’s Best UK Universities 2022 rankings, as well as 58 clearing sites…

Sidney eyes accessibility in plans for public washroom

September 27, 2021 | Source: Vancouver Island Free Daily- Canada

Plans for public washrooms in downtown Sidney will undergo a review with an eye toward making them more accessible for people with more complex and physical disabilities. Council instructed staff to review the possibility of including what experts call a changing place washroom, which will accommodate the needs of people with disabilities, into plans for new public washrooms. The municipality plans to open two new public washroom spaces in downtown Sidney in 2022. One would replace the current accessible washroom trailer on Fourth Street…

Swiggy Is Now Accessible To Visually Impaired Thanks To A Bank Employee From Ahmadabad

September 28, 2021 | Source: The Logical Indian- India

Today, technology has given us access to everything from the comfort of our homes. Whether it is booking tickets or ordering food for dining in, everything is just one click away. Furthermore, the fear of Covid-19 has driven more and more people to go online, considering that was one of the safest options. However, the transition for the visually challenged hasn’t been that easy. Without relevant applications to support, people with disabilities have suffered quite a lot during the pandemic.

Northern Line extension criticised over lack of accessibility for wheelchair users

September 28, 2021 | Source: London News- England

The two new Tube stations on the £1.1 billion Northern Line extension have been described as a “missed opportunity” to offer fully accessible transport after a wheelchair user described difficulties getting around. The new stations at Nine Elms and Battersea Power Station opened last week to a “party atmosphere” as enthusiasts gathered ahead of the first departure at 5am, with more than 20,000 journeys made on the first day. But despite being described as “breath-taking”, the new stations have been criticised by disability campaigners over a lack of accessibility…

Alliance Calls for Accessible Products Design Down Under

September 28, 2021 | Source: Multiple Sclerosis News Today- Australia

The Accessible Product Design Alliance has released a statement calling for changes in products and packaging design to assure equal accessibility among consumers, including those with disabling disorders such as multiple sclerosis (MS). Composed of 11 nonprofit health consumer organizations in Australia and New Zealand — including MS Australia — the alliance recognizes how difficulties with accessing packaged products can “cause day to day frustration for people without disability, but for those who have a chronic condition or a disability these products and packaging can become impossible,” according to a statement…

Why Do We Still Have To Fight for Basic Accessibility?

September 28, 2021 | Source: The Good Men Project- Canada

People with disabilities have to fight for basic accessibility every day – and it’s exhausting! I live with a disability that requires me to use crutches to get around. I work as a dance educator with students that have various disabilities. I’ve learned first-hand that ‘accessibility’ is a word that is thrown around plenty but largely ignored in practice. It’s time this changed. We live in a society with so much abundance of knowledge and experience to create accessible spaces for all, yet we are still so far behind…

TikTok launches auto-captioning on videos in New Zealand to increase accessibility

September 28, 2021 | Source: News Hub- New Zealand

Social media platform TikTok is making its content more accessible by launching auto captions in Australia and New Zealand today, a move hailed as “very important” by a Kiwi creator. Auto captions automatically generate subtitles, allowing viewers to read content, making it easier for the Deaf community to understand and enjoy the content according to video creator Chanelle Waite. The Taranaki-based TikToker has over 2000 followers and has welcomed the move, saying the Deaf community “wants to be involved and this feature gives us an opportunity to join in on the action even more”…

In return to post-COVID ‘normal,’ let’s not lose tiny gains in accessibility

September 28, 2021 | Source: Vancouver Sun- Canada

When the City of Vancouver alerted members of its various advisory bodies last week that they could no longer hold electronic meetings, the news made Gabrielle Peters “hurt and angry,” she said — but not particularly surprised.

“I’m never shocked that we’re left behind and forgotten, either intentionally or unintentionally, because that is the story of being a disabled poor person in Canada,” said Peters, a disabled writer and commissioner with the Vancouver City Planning Commission. “But honestly I just felt really sad … In the short time I’ve been on VCPC, it’s come to be something really important to me.”

Guideline for increasing accessibility of differently-abled persons

September 30, 2021 | Source: Himalayan News Service- Nepal

The federal government has drafted the ‘Guideline on Accessible System for Persons with Disabilities, 2021’ to ensure the accessibility of differently-abled persons to all facilities, including private and public buildings, health, education and employment services.The Ministry of Women, Children and Senior Citizens said the draft guideline was posted on its website, seeking valuable suggestions and feedback from stakeholders, experts and the public. The guideline proposes that public buildings, places and roads shall be made accessible to persons with disabilities, with no hindrance and discrimination to enable them enjoy available services and facilities…

Accessibility To Emergency Calls: Implementations Of The NG112 System For Deaf And Hard Of Hearing People

September 30, 2021 | Source: Emergency-Live- Italy

Accessibility and emergency, the NG112 system: deaf or hard of hearing people are strongly penalised when they have a medical emergency and have to make the emergency call. Although the Italian Operations Centres are now attentive to the needs of people with fragility and many regions have adopted a dedicated app, the number of people who can pay dearly for the communication “gap” is still too high. In Italy, as in many other places in Europe. Let’s take a look at the situation…

Calls for ‘transformative’ disability law change to make Aotearoa accessible

September 30, 2021 | Source: Stuff- New Zealand

A WorkSafe-type body should be set up so disabled people can identify and remove access barriers, a new report says. The report calls for transformative legislative change to make Aotearoa more accessible for the one in four New Zealanders with a disability. “We want to get rid of disabling experiences, not get rid of disability,” the report says. Warren Forster, who authored the report alongside Tom Barraclough and Curtis Barnes, said it was important to have one central, independent body dealing with accessibility issues…

Woman’s blindness cured after having her DNA edited – and she dyes hair green to celebrate

September 30, 2021 | Source: Daily Star- UK

A woman has dyed her hair green to celebrate being able to see vivid colours for the first time, after undergoing experimental gene therapy for eyesight. A breakthrough medical experiment saw seven patients with rare eye diseases volunteer to have their DNA modified, with amazing results. Carlene Knight, 55, whose vision was once so bad that she couldn’t see objects or colours, told NPR her vision is now much clearer and brighter following the treatment. She has dyed her hair her favourite colour to celebrate…

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