Illinois website rates how businesses accommodate people with disabilities

From the Chicago Sun-Times:

Few restaurants or retail businesses can afford to shy away from nearly 20 percent of their potential customers, particularly in this economy. Yet consumers with physical or developmental disabilities -- who spend an estimated $175 billion a year -- aren't always served with respect or understanding.

"A lot of businesses don't look at people with disabilities as a marketplace," said JJ Hanley, founder of jjslist, a website that rates how local businesses accommodate what is the fastest-growing minority in the country. "There is true value in making their workplaces flexible and respectful of people with disabilities."

Since going live in March 2009, jjslist has published more than 1,000 reviews of 750 local businesses across more than 50 Chicago-area communities. Businesses rated by the site vary from the Joliet Wal-Mart to Homer's Ice Cream in Wilmette. Reviews are almost always written by people with disabilities and/or their family members and companions.

A volunteer-driven organization, jjslist is funded by donors with additional assistance from Hanley's savings account. A former securities trader and veteran documentary producer for Chicago-based Kartemquin Films, Hanley, 50, has a teenage son with autism. The idea for the site came while producing the award-winning film ''Refrigerator Mothers,'' which profiled mothers in the '50s and '60s unfairly blamed for their children's developmental disorders.

While the original plan for jjslist involved professionally produced content, Hanley believes its current user-generated platform (like Yelp) is superior because businesses can communicate directly with their constituents. Pace suburban bus, for instance, is incorporating conversations with customers on jjslist within its overall marketing campaign to reach out to people with disabilities.

Hanley hopes to raise enough money in the coming years to take the service national.

"There is so much for neighborhood businesses to learn about people with disabilities," she said. "By doing so, there is almost nothing to be lost and everything to be gained."