From USA Today:

Crumbling sidewalks across the nation don’t meet federal requirements for disability access, putting people in wheelchairs at risk as they take to the streets.

Although there are no specific statistics on the number of accidents involving wheelchairs in streets, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System, disability was a factor in 617 pedestrian traffic fatalities last year.

Disabled residents here take their lives in their hands getting from point A to point B, says Scott Crawford (above), a disability-rights advocate.

([Jackson, MS] Clarion-Ledger photo from USA Today)

See also: Cape gets mixed grade for access — Cape Cod Times

From the New York Times, with video:

A fencing club in New Jersey has opened a new program, reportedly the first of its kind in the Northeast, to teach wheelchair fencing to young people with physical disabilities.

The club’s first six fencers have conditions like spina bifida, cerebral palsy and spinal cord injuries. With only 27 wheelchair athletes represented in the United States Fencing Association, club staffers are hopeful that their new athletes could reach national-level competitions and even the Paralympic Games.

Fencing club president George Janto says the sport requires very few modifications to accommodate people with disabilities. Fencing coach Mickey Zeljkovic, a five-time Serbian national fencing champion, says it requires participants to think ahead — “like physical chess.”

Parents say the program brings unexpected benefits to the new duelers. “They have a lot more confidence in themselves, that they can do what other children can do,” said Colleen Mooney, whose 15-year-old son attends weekly. “They may have their own special way of doing it, but they can [do it] like anyone else.”

(New York Times photo)

Writing in Business Week, Ralph Braun says studies show that hiring people with disabilities does not create higher costs for businesses, and yet the myths persist.

He says employer bias poses significant barriers to hiring for people with disabilities, and quotes a recent study that found only 40 percent of American working-age adults with disabilities are employed, either full- or part-time. An excerpt:

The fact is, employees with physical disabilities can do for your business what they’ve done for themselves: Move it forward, one step (or wheel turn) at a time.

Ralph Braun, who uses a wheelchair, is CEO of BraunAbility in Winamac, Ind.

From CNN ‘Heroes’:

Brad Blauser came to Iraq as a civilian contractor in 2004, but quit that job to devote himself fulltime to distributing free wheelchairs to Iraqi kids.

So far, his Wheelchairs for Iraqi Kids has distributed nearly 650 free pediatric wheelchairs. He works without compensation.

UNICEF estimates that one in seven Iraqi children aged 2 to 14 lives with a disability. Blauser says his group is the only source of pediatric wheelchairs in the country.

“By providing what they need, I’m hoping to start a movement to change the way people think about disabled children,” said Blauser. “They are not a curse, they are a blessing and they deserve to have their needs met.”

See also:

• Texas Man Gives Help to Iraqi Children – My Fox Atlanta (with video)
• Disabled Iraqi children get wheelchairs, big smiles — CNN

(CNN photo courtesy of Brad Hauser)

From CNN:

Debbie Brown, a Sacramento woman, has been using a no-frills wheelchair provided by Medicare at a cost to taxpayers of about $1,200.

CNN went to Apria Healthcare, the same company that charges Medicare for the rental of Brown’s wheelchair, and paid cash for a comparable model. The cost: $349, or about a fourth of what taxpayers have paid to rent a chair for Brown.

Brown says taxpayers should be outraged.

From the [Salt Lake City] Deseret News:

Forty members of the disability rights advocacy group ADAPT have been blocking the Democratic Party’s national headquarters in Washington, seeking support for the Community Choice Act. Other members of the group have been staging protests in state Democratic Party headquarters around the country.

The measure would allow people with disabilities who are receiving Medicaid benefits the ability to choose between nursing home care and long-term support services in the community.

See also: Obama backs helping hand for long-term care — NPR/Kaiser Health News

Sandy Lahmann, who uses a wheelchair, writes in the [Frisco, CO] Summit Daily News that people’s tendency to view disability as a medical problem is just plain wrong.

… Disability is a social and political problem. It’s not my medical status as a person with a disability that holds me back or gets in my way. It’s my social and political status as a person with a disability that holds me back and gets in my way.

The biggest problems for myself and other people with disabilities include difficulty obtaining meaningful employment despite having education and skills, being stuck as a result with an income below poverty level, difficulty accessing transportation services, and prejudicial attitudes.

The way I am treated by other people is a much bigger issue than my medical status.

(Summit Daily News photo)