pages: CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities/2017-04-12.pdf, 3
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CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities | 2017-04-12 | 3 | ITEM 2-B COMMISSION ON DISABILITY ISSUES MEETING MINUTES OF Wednesday, April 12, 2017 6:30 p.m. on, turn the lights off, and there's pretty much nothing you can't do without leaving the couch. You can just sort of sit there and control the whole space, and we'll show you how to use all that and we can actually go to your home and help you set it up. And then the third part is we have a whole bunch of different mobility devices that we can show you. It's everything, from some power wheelchairs, to power assist devices for manual wheelchairs, to sports wheelchairs to these kinds of things. For those of you who are not familiar, the Independent Living Center, we're the first one in the country. We're actually the first one in the world. There's now 400 centers around the country that are based on us, but they're not affiliated with us directly. We're just sort of the premise for the ideology. Stuart James: There're also several hundred more around the world and our office on any given probably week or month have groups from other countries visiting us. In the world of independent living we're kind of like Mecca. So we in fact just last week we had a group in from Thailand to come and talk about what we do. I am very new to the disability space, other than having one, so I use a wheelchair, but I spent 25 years working in sports and entertainment. So actually 10 years ago this month I was in Shanghai producing a concert for the Rolling Stones. Stuart James: So my life has changed a little. I ended up here because a variety of things. I have osteogenesis imperfecta. My mom founded the OI foundation in the United States. She's one of the founders and for 40 years Inever went to a meeting. It was a 40 year fight I had with my mom because she used to say, "You got to do something," and I'd say, "Go away. Don't bother me." I used to be an NFL agent, and I used to send my NFL players to play golf tournaments for my mom's charity but I would never tell them it had anything to do with me. They'd figure it out, but it was just a wall I put up, and I didn't like to cross that wall. But that kind of changed when I was living in China and I started a nonprofit there to help kids with physical disabilities. And through that process I ran into a woman you may or may not have heard of before, her name is Judy Heumann. And Judy Heumann is one of the founders of CIL along with Ed Roberts, and Judy's probably most famous for leading the 504 protest in 1977 when we took over the federal building. Stuart James: Up until a few months ago Judy was the head of human rights and disability for the US State Department. She was an Obama appointee, and prior to that she was undersecretary of health and human services for Clinton. She met me in Beijing. She said "What do you plan to do when you get back to the states?" I said "I'm going to go work for the PGL." She said "Would you consider doing something else?" I said "Maybe," and I went to DC and I spent two days with her. Stuart James: I tell you all of that because I had a very different idea about what needed to happen in disability than the conversation that was taking place. She didn't necessarily think I was right, but she said she hoped I was, and she wanted me to come try. For any independent living centers, our federal funding requires us to provide four core services. Peer counseling, so it's people with disabilities helping other people with disabilities on a one-on-one environment. In general you come into our office, you set a goal for yourself, and we try to help encourage you and show you a way to accomplish the goal. The second thing is we do advocacy so when it comes to public policy and those types of things we get involved and participate in that process. The third is independent living skills. We teach people with disabilities how to do certain things so they can live day-to-day like use an ATM. And the fourth is transition. We help people get out of institutions, or diversion, we help them not go into one to begin with. Actually that's the easier part. Transition out of institutions is really hard particularly in the Bay Area because housing is so expensive, but if we can get them before they 05/24/17 Page 3 of 29 | CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities/2017-04-12.pdf |