LIVING INDEPENDENTLY IN LOS ANGELES (LILA)
Administered by WCIL and the UCLA Center for Neighborhood Knowledge, LILA is a free and friendly, information resource web site created and mapped online by Los Angeles County residents with disabilities. The goal is to empower people with disabilities to use information technologies to support their independent living needs. As an effective tool, it is used also by families, caregivers, social workers, policy makers and those who provide an array of services to people with disabilities living in or visiting Los Angeles.
Finding resources for someone with a disability can be extremely frustrating especially when you live in such a huge county like Los Angeles. The LILA Website offers people a way to narrow that search. LILA also provides a map where the resources you are interested in actually appear with an icon. This way you can enter your own zip code or the zip code where you want to visit and find out where all the disability resources are in that area. Just run the mouse over the icons and you will get the name of the resource. Click on the resource and you will get more information along with that resource's contact information and website.
A mother with a young son in a wheelchair came by the LILA booth at the Abilities EXPO one year and asked about resources available on the LILA web site. The WCIL staff member manning the LILA booth told her about some of the resources on LILA including the Beach Wheelchair Program which is available at most L.A. County beaches. Free, it enables a wheelchair user to go onto the sand and even into the water. The mother was thrilled. A possible adventure nearby and no charge.
At next year's Abilities EXPO, the mother and child came by the LILA booth thanking the WCIL staff for letting them know about LILA and the Beach Wheelchair Program. The mother said that the chair was a little hard to push, but well worth the effort to see her son splashing in the ocean waves for the first time in his life.
