Our vision statement: Disability Rights Califorornia will create a world with quality, culturally responsive, safe, affordable, accessible housing, benefits, education, health care, transportation

What we do

The ADA: our best tool to fight discrimination

By Catherine Blakemore
Executive Director, Disability Rights California

2010 marked the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Upon its passage, Senator Ted Kennedy said: “The act has the potential to become one of the great civil rights laws of our generation…This legislation is a bill of rights for the disabled, and America will be a better and fairer nation because of it.” Twenty years later the ADA has changed the way society perceives individuals with disabilities, increased employment opportunities, provided better access to public and commercial buildings and ensured that individuals with disabilities have the opportunity to move from institutions to the community. Our work this year is framed by the realization that while much has been accomplished, we have much more to do if all Californians with disabilities are to be included in every aspect of society.

This year, we continued to help Californians with disabilities move from institutions to the community, continued to fight for community services in challenging budget times and continued our efforts to end the unspeakable abuse we investigated in nursing homes. Our success in helping people move from a state institution to the community, preserving critical community based mental health services for thousands of individuals with psychiatric disabilities and stopping the most devastating budget cuts shows the power of the ADA.

Because of the ADA we are also better able to challenge the attitudes and stereotypes that stigmatize disability. From the mid-1880s to the 1960s, more than 45,000 individuals died while residents of state institutions and were buried in numbered or unmarked graves. Now, they will be honored every third Monday of September, thanks to an Assembly resolution authored by Assemblymember Wesley Chesbro—a reminder to each of us that the lives of Californians with disabilities matter.

In tight budget times, we must make sure that California does not slip backwards: we must preserve services that help people with disabilities live successfully in the community. We hope that you will join us.

(From the 2010 Disability Rights California Annual Report)