SYSTEMS CHANGE ADVOCACY
Works to identify, bring attention to and improve issues affecting people with disabilities and advocate for necessary systems changes on the local, state, and national level, through empowerment teams.
Brenda, with a hidden disability that made walking difficult, called WCIL asking for help with a dispute she was having with her neighbors regarding her request for a disabled parking space in front of her apartment. Because Brenda had some years before had a disabled space and eventually cancelled it, the neighbors were upset. The planning commission turned her down based on an unwritten policy of one disabled space per block however, they told her if she wanted to appeal to go and appear at the city council.
We advised Brenda to request the parking space as a reasonable accommodation under the ADA and the City Council approved her request.
The ultimate result was that the planning commission met and for the first time set a policy and guidelines in consideration of Disabled parking spaces with in the city limits. Therefore, the request from an individual consumer made possible a change in the city system that benefited both people with and without disabilities.
