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About Accessibility
A perspective from Krista Zelt Caraway
After a freshman student was stranded in her wheel chair in her dorm on the fourth floor of Koury Residence Hall at UNC last week, I, as many of you, had thoughts.
This is unacceptable. Period. We, as a society, need to make the world accessible to everyone physically, medically, psychologically, socially, and mentally. Making the world accessible physically is the easiest of them all.
There are those who say, “This costs money.” Yes, yes it does. Perhaps we need to look at other spending and cut out fancy luncheons, golf carts, and alcohol – I’m sure that would easily cover the cost of making a learning (mentally accessible) space physically accessible to everyone. It’s all about priorities. We, as a community, are rich in resources as well as members willing to give their time – perhaps tap into these resources through partnerships and networking to solve our physically Inaccessible issues.
Back in 1998 when I was studying special education, we had an accessibility class. We were put into teams of 4 and assigned disabilities. We were given a challenge to go through our entire campus with various physical disabilities. We were blind (with blindfold and one of us as a guide), in a wheelchair, and / or deaf (with sound cancelling ear phones with a guide). We were to note our challenges, successes, and take note of immediate structural changes that need to be implemented. We also drafted proposals to our university (not UNC) that we sent to maintenance and / or president for changes to be made for accessibility.
First of all, this was an extremely valuable class. Empathy. I vowed never to complain about walking far to class and practiced gratitude for the abilities I do have. Individuals with disabilities already have to work harder to do daily tasks that many of us take for granted.
Second, can we talk about the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990)??? The very minimum, again, is to make our world, community, and society accessible to all individuals physically. IT’S THE LAW! This is something that strikes a cord with me. As a special needs parent, I see how often the world is not inclusive. We have to fight for everything – FAPE (Free Appropriate Public Education – an educational right of students with disabilities in the United States) is THE LAW. However, time and time again I see systems (education, medical, hospitals) not go by the law. They have many excuses:
“Because of Covid, we’re short staffed…”
“We just can’t teach him here, his needs are too great.”
“We can’t treat him here and are discharging with no plan in place.”
I could literally go on and on and on. How does this happen? Nobody makes sure laws are followed. An individual would have to pay a minimum of $10,000 Down payment up front to obtain a lawyer, then it would cost more than that. An individual would have to sue the agency not in compliance. It’s draining financially, mentally, etc. This shouldn’t be. We should have checks and balances. We should have individuals making sure laws are followed. We don’t.
I’ve learned to be my children’s advocate, to never take no for an answer, to be tenacious, to lean on our government officials, to be vulnerable, and to find the help doctors recommend for my children (rather than listening to MCO and “their doctors and alternative solutions”).
I’ve learned that the world is cruel, but there are good people. We have an amazing disability community here in Chapelboro. We are a tribe all together, families and friends. We solve all of our problems together.
Solving the accessibility issue at UNC is the first thing we need to do; then we need to look broader into the community and within ourselves. Ask yourself how you can be more inclusive. If you have a business, is your business accessible to everyone? We can all make changes; necessary changes to include everyone physically, mentally, medically, psychologically, and socially in our amazing community. We are better and stronger working together as a team. When one is down, we need to help them back up. Let’s work on this together for a better tomorrow.
“Viewpoints” on Chapelboro is a recurring series of community-submitted opinion columns. All thoughts, ideas, opinions and expressions in this series are those of the author, and do not reflect the work or reporting of 97.9 The Hill and Chapelboro.com.
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