pages: CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities/2017-10-11.pdf, 3
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CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities | 2017-10-11 | 3 | ITEM 2-A COMMISSION ON DISABILITY ISSUES MEETING MINUTES OF Wednesday, October 11, 2017 6:30 p.m. Region Nine, and we serve Arizona, California, Nevada, and Hawaii, and the Pacific Basin territories of Guam, American Samoa, and the commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Jan Garrett: So we have a very large territory, even though we're only one of ten regions, and the other ADA centers serve different regions; some of them are more rural and some of them have more urban areas, but we sort of have a mix of urban and rural in our region. And the 800 number that you can call to reach us, 1-880-949-4232, if you call that number anywhere in the United States, you will get the center that serves you, from your area code that you're calling from. So it's the same number nationwide that you can get the ADA Center. So that's helpful for people to know that may be in other parts of the country, or may have friends or family in other parts of the country. So what the ADA centers do, and what we do, is we provide technical assistance on our 800 hotline from our region. And technical assistance can be mostly on the ADA, of course, but it can be on other disabilities civil rights laws as well. So it might be on the Rehabilitation Act, it might be on the Air Carriers Access Act, or Fair Housing Act. Even though, really primarily, what we try to help people with is the ADA and that's what we're funded to do, we do answer questions about other laws just because they end up being related, a lot of times, to the ADA, and people have questions about those. Jan Garrett: So we do end up answering those questions. People can also email us at Adatech, that's A-D-A T-E-C-H at adapacific.org. Adatech@adapacific.org So they can email us, of course, anytime. It doesn't have to be between 8:00 AM and 5:00 PM, Monday through Friday, but we do answer the phone during all those hours, including lunch time. People are often surprised when they get someone on the phone and they say, "Wow, every number I call, everywhere else, I get a recording." So I think people find it helpful to actually get a live person. But feel free to also email us if you're not calling Monday through Friday, eight to five. And we can talk you through things, we can talk with you about California law or Hawaii law or Nevada law, at least as it relates to disability issues, as it relates to building code issues for accessibility, other things like that. Jan Garrett: So that's the advantage of the ADA centers being regional is that we can, not only know what the federal laws are, we can also know about state laws and about state building codes and other things of that nature. So that's helpful to people. And we often talk through buildings with architects or with the building code officials or with individuals with disabilities, so we talk about a wide variety of issues. And I must say that probably our most popular issue, in many forms, is service animals. So whether it be a service animal, an emotional support animal, other kinds of animals, we get lots of calls about that, both from the business community and people with disabilities, and from people in housing as well, from housing owners, as well as tenants and residents. So lots of calls about that. But we certainly answer questions across the board about many different things. Jan Garrett: We also have lots of materials. We have a lot of materials that we send out electronically these days, so we'll send them out by email or people can download them from our website. They can also download them from the ADA National Network website, which is Adata.org, which stands for ADA Technical Assistance, but it's Adata.org. And so there's lots and lots of materials there, as well as our materials. 12/13/17 Page 3 of 16 | CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities/2017-10-11.pdf |