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Ten Ways Public Establishments Can Become #IAccessible

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Nearly 30 years after the initial passing of the Americans with Disability Act (ADA), navigating public spaces is still a challenge for those living with a disability. DRI has worked with the Access Earth app in order to draw attention to local businesses that are and aren’t accessible and why. The app allows individuals to rate and review restaurants, bars, shops, hotels, parks, and more to check their accessibility.

What the app uncovered was while some establishments in Iowa are making a clear effort to become more accessible, others are sorely lacking.

Here are 10 things that public establishments in Iowa can do better in order to become #IAccessible.

  1. Lower the counter and table heights.

Although they seem to be all the trend right now, having high countertops and tables for your restaurant or bar is in no way inclusive. For restaurant seating to be accessible, it needs to be between 28 and 34 inches and have a knee space of 30 inches wide and 27 inches high. This is the one time where raising the bar isn’t a good thing.

  1. Update entryways.

An essential for all establishments, all entryways should be accessible. Step free access (a ramp) or lift access (don’t lock the lift) should be in place, along with a accessible parking spaces and a ground level lobby and restroom.

  1. Create and print Braille menus and information sheets.

Having a handful of Braille menus and information sheets on hand at your establishment will never be a bad idea. Additionally, having menus and information sheets printed in a large font will ensure that elderly individuals and those will sight issues will be able to navigate through their experience at your establishment.

  1. Update restrooms.

All restrooms should be on the first floor, just for the convenience of all guests. Additionally, a accessible restroom stall should have two grab bars (one behind the toilet, one on the side), stall handles, a 5-foot by 5-foot area to move in, and a low sink. Without these things, a restroom isn’t truly accessible.

  1. Ensure everyone can respond to an emergency signal.

An emergency signals must have flashing lights and audible signals to alert all consumers. Additionally, all permanent signs must have raised letters or Braille text. These two items allow those with a disability to feel safe, even during an emergency situation.

  1. For parks, ensure there are ramps.

A ramp option should be in every level of a park, not just one or two. This allows all individuals to participate in all activities at the outdoor attraction. Additionally, if there are docks in the park, ensure that those are accessible.

  1. For hotels, make an effort.

There are many items that a hotel needs to have in place to ensure that their rooms are accessible. These include, but are not limited to, having a low hanging space in a closet, ensuring that there is room to maneuver on each side of a bed, and having a roll in shower available. Without these items, those with mobility issues will not be granted a pleasurable or relaxing experience.

  1. Always have an elevator on the first floor of an establishment.

If an elevator is in the establishment, ensure that it’s on the first floor. This eliminates the difficult journey from a flight of stairs to an elevator in order to get from Place A to Place B.

  1. Train staff to understand their establishment’s accessibility options.

All members of a staff should be aware of the accessibility options in their place of work. Whether it be where the handicapped restroom is or where a party with a wheelchair user can sit, everyone on staff should be able to assist with these inquiries.

  1. Nothing about us, without us.

It sounds like common sense, but it’s important to ask those actually living with a disability about what changes they would like to see from your business. This will ensure that the changes made will be useful and effective.

Access Iowa

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I’m an Iowa boy. At 29, I’ve spent 24 years calling Iowa home. I grew up here, went to college here, and now I’ve settled down and chose to call this place home. But, for all that I love about Iowa, I can never shake the feeling that this state doesn’t know I exist.

Like anyone who has mobility challenges, inaccessibility has been a pervasive and begrudgingly accepted part of my life. When I go on walks with friends, I often lead us on winding, nonsensical paths because it is the only accessible route. When heading out to restaurants, my choices are driven by the accessibility of the restaurant bathroom, or if I can even get through the door. Sadly, these choices are common for people with disabilities.

We shop based on whether the clerk will make a scene when helping someone who is deaf. We favor Lyft or Uber based on how many times drivers have speed away to avoid having to transport our service dog. We twist and turn a million little ways to navigate a city that fails so often to accommodate us. It feels as though access is the exception rather than the rule, our needs an afterthought, if considered at all. When people with disabilities aren’t allowed access, we don’t disappear, we struggle, and push forward, reaffirming our right to live full, self-directed lives, regardless of the barriers in our way.

As Iowa continues to grow and develop, as our towns and cities transform to meet the changing needs of their citizens, we demand that they be accessible and inclusive for all. Our state will only be welcoming to people with disabilities if we make clear we won’t settle for less, if we insist that our leaders make universal, accessible design a key component of Iowa’s future.

That is why I’m so excited that Disability Rights Iowa and Access Earth are giving Iowans a new way to demand access state-wide by sharing which places are welcoming and accessible. Join Disability Rights Iowa this summer during our #IAccessbile campaign as we highlight how technology is empowering people with disabilities to address barriers wherever they find them!

As a community, we can fulfill the promise that the American’s with Disabilities Act represents. Inclusive, accessible communities benefit everyone. Please share your stories, talents and energy to spur change as we make Iowa #IAccessible!

DRI to Launch Accessibility Awareness Campaign #IAccessible

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This Fourth of July, Americans will come together to celebrate our independence and the incredible patriots who made it possible. But those patriots were not just wealthy landowners in powdered wigs. Patriots come in all shapes and sizes. They are found on our battlefields, in the backs of buses, or in the hallways of a nursing home. They are anyone who holds in their heart the values of independence for all and insist on making those values central to the American experience. And two such patriots helped to provide the independence for a generation of people with disabilities

This month people with disabilities celebrate our own landmark of independence, the Supreme Court’s Olmstead Decision. Two women with mental health challenges had long sought to live and work in the community, and were continually denied that opportunity. Forced to living in a hospital setting despite these wishes, they went to court and fought for their right to receive government services in a setting of within the community, a right to the essential supports that allow people with disabilities to live lives of their choosing. Such a decision is what allowed thousands of American’s with disabilities to leave nursing homes, and live as fully independent members of the community.

As we celebrate our independence this week, we must take the time to think of the millions for whom it remains is an elusive, unreachable goal. Take time to acknowledge those who remain needlessly segregated and restricted in institutions, live under unnecessary guardianships or even feel just by being a person with a disability that their choices are less important. Independence was won by those who came before us and must be won continually, an evolution which will allow our nation to one day finally embody the lofty principles on which it was founded.

But we also have time to be thankful for how far we have already come. To think of those brave women who made the Olmstead Decision possible, and in doing showed as a way to our independence. People with disabilities and our nation made better for their bravery.

A New Design

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Heather Reimers is at ease with her sense of style. Her look is a striking contrast of classic, sweeping dresses and youthful tattoos. But her love for fashion goes beyond the aesthetic. She cares about not just what she is wearing, but who made it, how and why.

From a young age, her artistic talents lead to her pragmatic approach to disability. Born with brittle bone disease, Reimers’ height made taking ownership of her own clothes a necessary skill from a young age.

“I learned how to sew when I was four, I had to hem my pants. I was going to have to hem every pair of pants I would wear my whole life”

Later, she was introduced to Edith Head and the endless possibilities of costuming. She adored Lady Gaga and Alexander McQueen, patron saints of the avant-garde. Growing up, her love for fashion made embracing it as a career path a no-brainer and she dove into her formal education with gusto, in spite of the prejudices that people with disabilities face in the fashion industry. Reimers found herself restricted by the logistical realities of the business world.

“We were required to take certain classes . . . and one of them was a global sourcing class. We had to read a book, it’s about how a t-shirt is made. Where does everything go? From the growing of the materials, to the end of the shelf-life. So we saw how it started in Texas, went to California, Vietnam, India, the entire cycle and we broke down what is going into this shirt. Just one shirt.”

Her education began focusing on the skeletal structure on which the fashion world is built, and didn’t allow space for designing for unique functional needs, or for body types outside the norm.

“In college, I really, really, really struggled. At my university they teach ready-to wear, which is what’s going to get you a job. They don’t teach you functional, cool stuff until your last year. So I’ve tried really hard in my designs to put functional pieces into everything I was making. So I wouldn’t use snaps, because they are hard for some people.”

Her desire to address the needs of the disability community, and allow her designs to reflect more than a cookie cutter template conflicted at times with the focus of her studies, but she never lost a personal interest in designing inclusive, functional clothing.

“I got really good at jackets, anything that would be easy to pull on. My friend has MD [Muscular Dystrophy], she can’t find a good jacket to save her life…I wanted to look at what the fabric could do for the client . . .Velcro is an easy one to go to, but unfortunately isn’t the most appealing.”

Reimers’ own experience shaped her frustration with the limitations of the clothing options for people with disabilities.

“[Shopping is] a gigantic pain in the butt. I have to shop in both the little kids and adult section. So I get some weird looks in Target”

After graduating, Reimer fully committed to her career and relocated to the west coast.. It became apparent that by dedicating her life to this field, she would be forced to become complicit in a system that did a great deal of harm.

“I took an internship last summer in Los Angeles and had a terrible experience. It was everything they warn you about, thrown into a bubble. I got the advantage of seeing how things are built because they had a factory right up stairs. . . I saw how much waste goes into these products, how poorly people are treated. . . . The awful side of fashion.”

Despite her continued passion for design, form and function, the realities and scope of the problems within her industry were hard to stomach.

“Most companies doesn’t actually have factories in house. So they have to send that to China, or Indonesia or Vietnam. Which is where my personal morals came into it.”

Then Reimers began to have a sense of complicity, and was conflicted about pursuing fashion as career. Her desire to merge her youthful passion for color, design and innovation with the stark realities of the fashion industry continued, but without direction.

Yet despite the near fundamental hostility the fashion world has for non-traditional body types, she views it less as a problem and more as an opportunity to educate others.

“The unfortunate truth is it costs quite a bit to make an accessible garment. The reality is you can’t make money from anything. . . I’m not joking you. Fast fashion is there to make money. They are there to make their CEOs a lot of money and if they can’t sell to a large quantity then they don’t really care.”

As for the brief experiments major brands have made towards accessible clothing for children, they have left her somewhat unimpressed.

“I think it’s great, but once again it’s skipping over adults. Tommy Hilfiger and Target are targeting the white people, the middle class white people who have the disposable income to spend on their children. Not necessarily the family with a kid with a disability that are living paycheck to paycheck.”

Reimers’ understanding of the fashion industry doesn’t lend itself to easy solutions, or easily digestible narratives surrounding accessible design. Too often, issues facing the disability community are painted as gaps in knowledge, issues that could so easily be addressed if only we changed some minds, humanized our community, or crafted the perfect, unsurpassable PSA.

Reimers holds to no such misconceptions. Clothes, like the people who wear them, are a product of complex systems. A carefully calibrated ecosystem designed to meet a consumer need, and make profit doing.

For Reimers, having an honest conversation about making large scale industries accessible demands large scale thinking, and an acknowledgement that people with disabilities not being a consideration in the fashion world isn’t an accident, but the result of purposeful actions.

“So it’s a matter of giving people with disabilities good paying jobs, and helping them get into the workforce more…and now fashion companies can get into a market, because we have more money to spend.”

The solution is not education, but empowering the disabled community to have purchase in our economic systems, and an industry whose success or failure doesn’t depend on exploitation or environmental harm. As a first step towards sustainability, Reimers encourages people to think about how to re-use their old clothes instead of just throwing them away.

Whether inside the fashion world or outside of it, it’s clear Reimers is going to commit herself to the values of economic and disability justice. She loves fashion, and is working towards a new design.