Indiana to assess its ADA compliance

From NWI Times:

Even more difficult for region wheelchair users than getting into public buildings or businesses with accessibility barriers is getting anything done about the obstacles, state and region civil rights experts say.

A three-month Times investigation published last week found at least 71 access barriers for wheelchair users and others with mobility disabilities at a sampling of dozens of high-traffic businesses, shopping districts and public buildings in Lake and Porter counties and Chicago's south suburbs. Several of the barriers -- such as difficult-to-open doors leading to bathrooms, high entryway thresholds and steep ramps -- directly contradicted standards in the Americans with Disabilities Act.

At question in the minds of many region wheelchair users and advocates is whether enough teeth exist in the act to effectively enforce provisions of the 20-year-old law.

Help may be on the way, however, in the form of a fresh effort by the federal government to gauge how well local governments have attempted to meet the law's requirements.

The Indiana Department of Transportation is collecting information from counties, cities and towns to allow the agency and the Federal Highway Administration to assess Indiana's overall compliance with the ADA.

The survey is being distributed by metropolitan planning organizations across the state, including the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission, based in Portage.

NIRPC planner Gary Evers said the new collection of data almost 20 years after the ADA was passed may signal that the Obama administration is going to take a tougher stand on enforcing its provisions.

That barriers persist two decades after passage of the 1990 ADA comes as no surprise to representatives of government-funded agencies charged with helping the disabled.

Christine Dahlberg, deputy director of the Indiana Governor's Council for People with Disabilities, said a major obstacle to ADA enforcement is the lack of any one agency dedicated to ensuring the law's provisions are met at government buildings and businesses open to the public.

"Because the ADA is a civil rights law, there are no ADA police," Dahlberg said. "Enforcement is based on complaints of people who encounter the barriers."

And the system for making those complaints can be complicated by government bureaucracy. Filing complaints also can tax the financial resources of the groups or individuals making the complaints and can drag on for years, said Teresa Torres, executive director of Merrillville-based disability advocacy agency Everybody Counts Inc.

The U.S. Department of Justice is the lead federal agency that oversees elements of the ADA. It accepts complaints about perceived ADA violations and sometimes pursues civil lawsuits against public agencies or private businesses that resist mediation or other efforts to rectify violations.

But Torres, whose agency receives federal funding to advocate for the disabled, said more often, complaints made to the large federal agency get filed away or take a back seat to other government priorities.

Torres also has letters from disabled people whom she has helped that show cases in which the federal agency referred those complaining back to local advocacy groups.

"They will often tell you to try to work it out with the business or agency perceived to be the offender," Torres said. "If that doesn't work out, you're back to square one."

If disabled parties are sure an accessibility violation has occurred, they also can file civil lawsuits, something that often requires thousands of dollars in attorney fees and years of patience as cases work their way through settlement conferences or trials.

Torres said her agency filed a federal civil lawsuit against region mass transit providers in 1997 after three years of negotiating for better accessibility of region buses failed. Though parties in that case signed consent decrees to settle the case out of court in 2006, the parties involved still are doing battle in Hammond federal court over implementing the agreement.

Dahlberg, with the governor's council, said lawsuits are not practical options for most wheelchair users or others with disabilities.

"This is very difficult for people to do because of cost or just a general lack of information about how the legal process works," Dahlberg said.

Though the disabled are better off with ADA on the books, the convoluted process of enforcing the law leaves many with the feeling that it lacks teeth, said ADA consultant Emma Sullivan.

"It really has little baby teeth that have no roots," Sullivan said of the law.

"People still need to be interested in being their own best advocate and knowing what the law says for themselves. Their best bet remains through independent-living centers and other agencies that can help explain the laws and seek solutions."