AACEI Greater Miami Section Meeting, Thursday, May 24, 2012

Our speaker of the month Eric Contreras, AAIA, CGC, CAI, Chief Consultant
for ADAAG Consulting Services, will provide a presentation on the
Financial Impact of the New ADA Standards in A/E/C Projects.

Mr. Contreras has 20 years of experience performing Accessibility
Consulting Services, Detailed Facility Surveys, ADA Compliance Evaluation,
Implementation Plan Development, ADA Corporate Policy Guidance and
Interpretation, ADA Expert Witness Service, ADA Compliance Plan Review for
Architects, Engineers and Building Department, Building Code Enforcement,
Compliance with Municipal, State and/or Federal Accessibility/ Building
Codes and Statutes, Uniform Federal Accessibility Standards (UFAS) Title
II Guide Lines and Fair Housing Act (FHA) Compliance Evaluations, Seminars
and Workshops, ADA Title II Transition Plan for State and Local
Governments Evaluation, Seminar and Workshop, Florida Building Commission
Vertical Accessibility Waiver, ADA Construction Cost Estimates, Project
Management and ADA Architectural Design.

He also possesses extensive experience providing technical consulting
services for design and construction of public accommodations, commercial
facilities and private and public entities, with regard to accessibility
compliance and/or requirements of Section 504, Title II and III of the
Americans with Disabilities Act Accessibility Guidelines (ADAAG), Uniform
Federal Accessibility Standards (UFAS), the Fair Housing Act (FHA) and the
Architectural Barriers Act (ABA). He provides expert witness service and
technical consulting with regard to all standards that pertain to the
compliance and/or requirements of Title II and III of the Americans with
Disabilities Act of 1990, the Fair Housing Act, and the Rehabilitation
Act, relating to public accommodations, commercial facilities and
applicable private and public entities; construction as it relates to
accessibility compliance.
He is also an expert on the new 2010 ADA Standards for Accessible Design
(The Department of Justice's revised regulations for titles II and III of
the Americans with disabilities Act of 1990 -ADA- published in the Federal
Register on September 15, 2010).
Areas of Professional Expertise:
• Accessibility Consulting
• Detailed Facility Surveys
• ADA Compliance Evaluation
• Implementation Plan Development
• ADA Corporate policy Guidance and Interpretation
• ADA Expert Witness Service
• ADA Compliance Plan review for Architects
• Engineers and Building Department
• Building Code Enforcement
• Compliance with Municipal, State and/or Federal Accessibility/
Building Codes and
Statues
• Uniform Federal Accessibility Standards (UFAS) Title II Guidelines and
Fair Housing
Act (FHA) Compliance Evaluations, Seminars and Workshops
• ADA Title II Transition Plan for State and Local Governments
Evaluation, Seminar
and Workshop
• Florida Building Commission Vertical Accessibility Waiver, and ADA
Architectural
Design
• Accessibility Inspection and ADA Cost Estimating

Please feel free to forward this email to anyone that you feel might be
interested. Do not forget to visit our website http://aacei-miami.org/

Snacks and refreshments will be served.

Please RSVP by Tuesday, May 22th at <normacueto@aacei-miami.org>

HUD MAKES AVAILABLE $85 MILLION TO FUND HOUSING FOR EXTREMELY LOW-INCOME PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES

HUD No. 12-084 Donna White (202) 708-0685

FOR RELEASE Tuesday May 15, 2012

HUD MAKES AVAILABLE $85 MILLION TO FUND HOUSING
FOR EXTREMELY LOW-INCOME PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES
New Section 811 demonstration links state housing agencies with state Medicaid agencies

WASHINGTON – Today, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development makes $85 million available to state housing agencies to provide affordable supportive housing for extremely low-income persons with disabilities. This is the first time in the history of HUD’s Section 811 Supportive Housing for Persons with Disabilities Program that funding will be offered to state housing agencies that meet new eligibility criteria, including having a partnership with a state health and human services and Medicaid agency to provide essential support and services. The Notice of Funding for the Section 811 Project Rental Assistance was posted on Grants.gov today here.
Entities have until July 31, 2012 to apply for funding, which is expected to provide housing for 2,800 extremely low-income persons with disabilities.
“The reforms the Obama Administration has made to the Section 811 program will strengthen HUD's efforts to provide affordable, supportive housing to thousands of the most vulnerable low-income persons with disabilities," said HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan. “HUD and the Department of Health and Human Services are also seizing the opportunity to support innovative state-level strategies to transform and increase the availability of affordable housing, matched with needed services and supports, that will help keep people with disabilities out of institutions and integrated into the community.”
“We are excited about this new opportunity for housing with services for people with disabilities,” said HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.  “Our collaboration with HUD is critically important to helping people with disabilities lead productive lives as members of their communities.  This is a priority for our Department, which is reflected in the recent creation of the Administration for Community Living.  This agency provides leadership within HHS and across the federal government to make sure that people with disabilities have the opportunity to live in the community with the right mix of services and supports."
To ensure this at-risk population gets quality, cost-effective service, HUD and HHS are aligning housing and healthcare services at the state level. Under new eligibility requirements, only state or local housing agencies that are currently administering affordable housing programs are eligible for these funds.  In addition, these entities must have established a formal partnership with a state health and human services and Medicaid agency to provide for referrals, tenant selection and perform other casework activities to ensure that individuals with the most critical need receive this supportive housing assistance.  The funding must be used for rental assistance only and not for construction or rehabilitation.
“The Section 811 Program is a lifeline for people in the disability community who want to live normal lives in society, but cannot afford the cost of even modest rental housing.  These reforms make the program even more significant to improve the lives of thousands more people with long-term disabilities access to services in the community," said Andrew Sperling, housing Co-Chair of the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities Housing Task Force.
This round of funding will also target the assistance to "extremely" low-income persons with disabilities – those who are at or below 30 percent of Area Median Income (AMI) – and limits to only 25 percent the number of apartments that can be set-aside for supportive housing for persons with disabilities in a building.  These measures, and other reforms to the Section 811 program, are the result of the Frank Melville Supportive Housing Investment Act of 2010 – groundbreaking legislation President Obama signed on January 4, 2011 to revitalize and reform the program to improve services to this population.

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HUD's mission is to create strong, sustainable, inclusive communities and quality affordable homes for all.
HUD is working to strengthen the housing market to bolster the economy and protect consumers; meet the
need for quality affordable rental homes: utilize housing as a platform for improving quality of life; build
inclusive and sustainable communities free from discrimination; and transform the way HUD does business.
More information about HUD and its programs is available on the Internet at www.hud.gov and
http://espanol.hud.gov. You can also follow HUD on twitter @HUDnews, on facebook at www.facebook.com/HUD, or sign up for news alerts on HUD's News Listserv.

The Silver Scorpion: The First Ever Cross-Cultural Superhero with a Disability

By the Open Hands Initiative team
Imagine if we could bring American and international youth together to collaborate on projects that raise awareness about common social issues faced by people all over the world. That is exactly what we do at the Open Hands Initiative (OHI), a nonprofit organization founded in 2009 by American businessman and philanthropist, Jay T. Snyder. We create platforms for exchange that emphasize our common values rather than our differences, building a reservoir of goodwill and understanding that we hope can withstand even the most fundamental policy differences.
The Open Hands Initiative’s mission is to support people-to-people diplomacy by creating cross-cultural dialogue and building global friendships through exchanges between American and international youth. By focusing on our similarities and areas of commonality, we not only try to open young people’s eyes to new cultures, but also help to forge new solutions to tackle global challenges.
We work within three areas of concentration – Media and Democracy; Culture and Creativity; and Disability and Accessibility. Through each of these focuses we have conducted projects in Syria and Egypt, with plans to expand our programs throughout the Middle East and the greater Muslim and Arab world.
It is our mission to promote the rights of persons with disabilities. In pursuit of this goal, we designed an exchange program between 26 American and Syrian youth advocates with disabilities.
The “Youth Ability Summit,” held in Damascus in 2010, served as a platform to share stories, culture and ideas on how to promote the rights of people with disabilities around the world. During the Summit, youth worked closely with disability rights experts and Liquid Comics to create an original superhero. The result was one that reflected their cultural values as well as the challenges of living with a disability. Today, the “Silver Scorpion” is the first ever cross-cultural superhero with a disability; he represents the power of cross-cultural dialogue and collaboration.
The “Silver Scorpion” is the brainchild of the youth who collaborated during the Summit, and it tells the story of a Muslim boy named Bashir who loses his legs in a landmine accident and later gains the powerful ability to bend metal with his mind. This comic is an innovative approach to people-to-people diplomacy, turning a group of extraordinary young people with disabilities into unlikely diplomats. It encourages understanding, dialogue and tolerance not just for persons with disabilities, but also for people from different cultures around the world.
OHI’s Chairman and Founder, Jay Snyder, calls the Silver Scorpion project an “innovative approach towards bridging the gap between Americans and the Muslim world.” He also emphasizes the fact that this type of people-to-people diplomacy is increasingly valuable today. “The collaboration and understanding between regular citizens of the United States and Syria is ever more pressing today during these times of unrest.”
Since the Youth Ability Summit and the publication of the “Silver Scorpion,” the Open Hands Initiative has been distributing the comic book across the United States and the Muslim world. It has reached the hands of more than 30,000 Americans, 12,000 Egyptians and soon several thousand Lebanese and Syrian youth, teachers and disability experts. The comic book will also be used in classrooms in Egypt and Syria as a method of teaching about the rights and inclusion of persons with disability in schools.
To further the reach of the “Silver Scorpion,” the Open Hands Initiative is partnering with Liquid Comic and MTV Voices to launch an animated Web series based off of the comic book story created by the Syrian and American youth. This four-part series is available online in three languages across Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia on MTV’s global websites.
In addition to the creation of the “Silver Scorpion,” the Youth Ability Summit also hosted a three-day writing workshop which produced the first cross-cultural guidebook for implementing the UN Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This manual was authored jointly by disability experts from Syria and America. The manual entitled “Ensuring Rights in Development,” focuses specifically on the development of rights for persons with disabilities in the Middle East/North Africa (MENA) region. Our intention is that activists, community leaders, professionals, policy makers, volunteers, nonprofit organizations and people with and without disabilities will use this manual to not only learn, but also to increase awareness and further reforms towards inclusion and development. The “Ensuring Rights in Development” manual can be found on the Open Hands Initiative website, along with a digital version of the Silver Scorpion.
For more information about the Open Hands Initiative, please visit http://www.openhandsinitiative.org/.

U.S. Department of Education Issues Resource Document that Discourages Restraint and Seclusion

May 15, 2012

Contact:  

Press Office, (202) 401-1576, press@ed.gov

Today, the U.S. Department of Education issued a publication that outlines principles for educators, parents and other stakeholders to consider when developing or refining policies and procedures to support positive behavioral interventions and avoid the use of restraint and seclusion.
The goal of this resource document is to help ensure that schools are safe and healthy environments where all students can learn, develop and participate in instructional programs that promote high levels of academic achievement.
“As education leaders, our first responsibility must be to make sure that schools foster learning in a safe environment for all of our children and teachers,” U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said. “I believe this document is an important step toward this goal. I also want to salute leaders in Congress for their vigilance on this issue.”
The 15 principles that frame the document ultimately highlight how schoolwide behavioral interventions can significantly reduce or eliminate the use of restraint or seclusion. These guiding principles offer states, districts and other education leaders a framework for developing appropriate policies related to restraint and seclusion to ensure the safety of adults and children.
“Ultimately, the standard for educators should be the same standard that parents use for their own children,” Duncan added. “There is a difference between a brief time out in the corner of a classroom to help a child calm down and locking a child in an isolated room for hours. This really comes down to common sense.”
The document also provides a synopsis of ongoing efforts by federal agencies to address national concerns about using restraint and seclusion in schools, and includes links to state restraint and seclusion policies and procedures.
To access this document, click here.

Academy of Architecture for Health (playlist)

New Toronto Star On-line Guest Column Co-Written by AODA Alliance Chair Identifies Barriers to Enforcing Human Rights in Ontario

TODAY IS TTC ANNUAL ACCESSIBILITY PUBLIC FORUM
May 10, 2012
SUMMARY
The May 10, 2012 on-line edition of the Toronto Star includes a guest column on barriers that face people who try to enforce their human rights in Ontario. We set out that guest column below. It is co-written by AODA Alliance chair David Lepofsky and the director of the Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic, Avvy Go. Our position on the need to reform Ontario’s human rights system, set out in this guest column, is fortified when we team up with respected community leaders like Ms. Go. She advocates for human rights from the perspective of racialized communities.
We encourage you to:
* email this guest column to friends and family.
* Post a link to it on your FaceBook wall and recommend it to your FaceBook friends. The link to the May 10, 2012 guest column in the Toronto Star is:
http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/1175822–it-s-tougher-than-ever-to-enforce-your-human-rights-in-ontario
* If you use Twitter, tweet a link to this guest column to your followers.
* Write a letter to the editor of the Toronto Star to voice your thoughts on the position in this guest column. You can email letters to the editor to lettertoed@thestar.ca
This guest column helps alert the public to important issues that the current Ontario Human Rights Code Review is considering. Last August, the McGuinty Government appointed Toronto lawyer Andrew Pinto to conduct a review of the effectiveness of Ontario’s system for enforcing human rights. We await the Pinto Review’s final report later this year. You can download our main March 1, 2012 brief to the Pinto Review in MS Word format by visiting: http://www.aodaalliance.org/docs/march%201%202012%20entire%20final%20aoda%20alliance%20brief%20to%20andrew%20pinto%20human%20rights%20code%20review.doc
You can download our April 12, 2012 supplemental brief to the Pinto Review in MS Word format by visiting: http://www.aodaalliance.org/docs/AODA-Brief-to-Pinto-Review.doc
You can find more background on the pinto Human Rights Code Review at http://www.aodaalliance.org/reform/default.asp
It is timely that this guest column refers to the battle to get the Toronto Transit Commission to audibly announce all bus and subway stops for the benefit of passengers with vision loss. Today, May 10, 2012 from 7 to 9:30 pm, will be the fifth annual TTC Public Forum on Accessible Public Transit. We encourage anyone in the Toronto Area to attend this event. TTC’s governing Commissioners and senior managers will be present to hear your feedback, including complaints and concerns, from passengers with disabilities. Tell them about barriers you face when using the TTC. Make suggestions on how to fix these barriers. This includes barriers faced by those who ride the para-transit system called WheelTrans, as well as anyone who uses the conventional public transit system in Canada’s largest city.
Why is TTC holding this public forum on accessibility? In 2007, the Human Rights Tribunal ordered TTC to hold three annual public forums on accessible public transit as part of the remedies in the case of Lepofsky v. TTC #2, a case referred to in the Toronto Star guest column set out below. Last year, after that three year period expired, TTC commendably decided to voluntarily hold annual accessible public transit forums. This year’s TTC accessibility public forum is therefore being held voluntarily.
Starting next year, every public transit provider must hold a comparable annual event under the provisions of the new Integrated Accessibility Regulation that the Government enacted last year. Section 41 of the Integrated Accessibility Regulation includes:
“41. (1) In addition to the accessibility plan requirements set out in section 4, in their accessibility plan, conventional transportation service providers shall identify the process for managing, evaluating and taking action on customer feedback.
(2) Every conventional transportation service provider shall annually hold at least one public meeting involving persons with disabilities to ensure that they have an opportunity to participate in a review of the accessibility plan and that they are given the opportunity to provide feedback on the accessibility plan.
(3) If the provider of conventional transportation services also provides specialized transportation services, the transportation service provider shall address both types of transportation services in its accessibility plan.
(4) Transportation service providers shall meet the requirements of this section by January 1, 2013.”
Tonight’s TTC event will be held from 7 to 9:30 pm at the Queen Elizabeth Exhibition Hall at Exhibition Place.
TTC’s announcement of this event includes the following:
“In addition to regular TTC services to Exhibition Place, and the accessible shuttle service between Bathurst Station, which is accessible, and Queen Elizabeth Exhibit Hall, Wheel-Trans will be providing to-the-door services for its registrants.
Accommodations at the meeting will include barrier-free entrances, accessible washrooms, attendants, full audio system, assistive listening devices, and captioning.
If you would like to learn more about the TTC’s accessibility plans, or see presentations from past public forums, please visit the Accessibility section of the TTC website:
http://www3.ttc.ca/TTC_Accessibility/index.jsp
If you have difficulty accessing the link, have questions, or cannot attend but would like to contribute suggestions about improving the accessibility of TTC services, please call 416-393-3030 (TTY at 416-481-2523), any day, 7:00 am to 10:00 pm.”
We encourage you to urge your community’s public transit provider to also hold an accessible public forum on public transit accessibility in your community this year. We always welcome your feedback on our AODA Alliance Updates. Email us at: aodafeedback@gmail.com
*****
TORONTO STAR ON-LINE EDITION MAY 10, 2012
URL: http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/1175822–it-s-tougher-than-ever-to-enforce-your-human-rights-in-ontario
It’s tougher than ever to enforce your human rights in Ontario
David Lepofsky and Avvy Go
Imagine being refused a job, an apartment or public service due to your race, disability or sex. How hard is it to enforce your human rights? Six years ago, the McGuinty government’s Bill 107 made controversial changes to human rights enforcement. You likely don’t know that a poorly publicized government-appointed independent review has asked the public if these changes make things better or worse.
Before Bill 107, you could take your case to the Ontario Human Rights Commission. Its job was to enforce the Human Rights Code, to investigate human rights complaints, to screen out frivolous or meritless cases and to try to negotiate settlements. If it decided a complaint had merit and couldn’t settle it voluntarily, its job was to publicly prosecute the case at the Human Rights Tribunal.
Six years ago, to speed up a slow, backlogged system that needed reform, Bill 107 privatized human rights enforcement. It took the Human Rights Commission out of screening, investigating and prosecuting individual discrimination cases. It makes discrimination victims investigate and litigate their cases at the tribunal without the commission’s help.
Does Bill 107 make lives better for victims of discrimination? Far from it.
It created a huge void for discrimination victims by taking the Human Rights Commission out of individual cases. The government promised free lawyers for all claimants. Yet its new Human Rights Legal Support Centre only represents a fraction. Far too many unrepresented claimants encounter respondents (those accused of discrimination) armed with lawyers. The tribunal reports that 81 per cent of respondents have a lawyer at mediation but only 32.9 per cent of claimants have any representative when filing a claim.
The Liberal government promised human rights hearings within one year. The tribunal set a goal to achieve this in only 75 per cent of cases. Its average time to complete cases is 372 days, but most of those never have a hearing.
Individuals can’t themselves investigate and litigate complex systemic discrimination cases. The Liberals pledged that the stripped-down Human Rights Commission would effectively combat systemic discrimination by bringing public interest cases to the tribunal and intervening in individual cases. To date the commission has brought only one public interest case and intervened in only 73 of the thousands of individual cases. Also, the government hasn’t established the promised anti-racism and disability secretariats, ignoring its own legislation.
Liberals also promised more accessible human rights but instead created new barriers. A discrimination victim who wins at the tribunal risks having to pay thousands of dollars in legal costs if their win gets overturned by the court due to the tribunal’s own legal errors. Would a blind person likely take on the TTC today, to force it to call out bus stops, when the new Legal Support Centre is statistically unlikely to take their case, the TTC is ready to spend $450,000 on lawyers, and the applicant could be stuck with a huge court cost order because a win at the tribunal was based on the tribunal making legal errors?
The government said Bill 107 would address the backlog. Yet its transition process unfairly led 885 cases to vanish in the system.
Liberals promised fair hearings. Yet they gave the tribunal power to override legislation designed to ensure fair hearings and allowing it to pass controversial and complicated rules.
We hope this current Human Rights Code Review will recognize these amply-documented problems, and make strong recommendations to improve Ontario’s troubled human rights system. Many from equality-seeking communities want the government to keep its broken promises about Bill 107. They want the government to require the tribunal to obey legislation designed to foster fair hearings, and to restore the Human Rights Commission as a stronger public interest voice at the tribunal. Discrimination victims should be given the option of asking the Human Rights Commission to investigate and publicly prosecute their case if there’s enough evidence. Discrimination victims want results. They don’t care if they get it through hearings or through mediations.
Do you like the TTC announcing bus and subway stops, even if you’re sighted? Imagine if under this new human rights system, no one wanted to risk taking on big organizations like the TTC without the backing of a public prosecutor to win that and other accessibility measures. Is that the human rights enforcement system we really want?
David Lepofsky is a blind Toronto lawyer, activist for reforms for the rights of persons with disabilities, and twice successfully won human rights cases before Bill 107 to force the TTC to announce bus and subway stop announcements. http://www.aodaalliance.org/www.aodaalliance.org, Twitter.com/davidlepofsky
More on the AODA Alliance’s briefs and activities regarding the Ontario Human Rights Code Review.
Avvy Go is Clinic Director, Metro Toronto Chinese & Southeast Asian Legal Clinic.
To sign up for AODA Alliance e-mail updates, or to unsubscribe, write our new email address: aodafeedback@gmail.com
Follow us on Twitter and get others to do so as well! Twitter.com/aodaalliance
Learn more at: www.aodaalliance.org
UNITED FOR A BARRIER-FREE ONTARIO

New ADA Settlement Agreements Over Complaints of HIV Discrimination

The Justice Department has reached two settlements resolving claims that health care providers refused to serve people with HIV in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The agreements, with Mercy Medical Group Midtown Clinic in Sacramento, CA and with Knoxville Chiropractic Clinic North in Knoxville, TN, require the entities to develop and implement a non-discrimination policy and to train staff on the requirements of the ADA. In addition, Mercy Medical Group and CHW Medical Foundation are required to pay $60,000 to the complainant and $25,000 as a civil penalty, and Knoxville Chiropractic Centers is required to pay $10,000 as a civil penalty.
The ADA requires public accommodations, like doctors’ offices, medical clinics, hospitals and other health care providers, to provide individuals with disabilities, including people with HIV, equal access to goods, services, privileges, accommodations, facilities, advantages and accommodations.
The Justice Department provides a webpage specifically dedicated to information about the ADA and HIV at www.ada.gov/aids. Those interested in finding out more about these settlements or the obligations of public accommodations under the ADA may call the Justice Department’s toll-free ADA Information Line at 800-514-0301 or 800-514-0383 (TDD), or access the ADA Website at www.ada.gov. ADA complaints may be filed by email at ada.complaint@usdoj.gov.