Media Coverage

"The lawsuit filed late Wednesday with the U.S. District Court in San Diego alleges that disabled homeless people living in their recreational vehicles are unfairly targeted for tickets.

City of San Diego municipal code states "oversized vehicles, non-motorized vehicles and recreational vehicles" cannot be parked on city streets from 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. It is also "unlawful for any person to use a vehicle while it is parked or standing on any street as either temporary or permanent living quarters, abode, or place of habitation either overnight or by day.”"

"SAN DIEGO (NEWS 8) — San Diegans who live in their vehicles say they are fed up with how they're being treated by the city and now they're filing a class action lawsuit. 

They're upset over their cars being impounded, getting citations they can't afford to pay and getting, what they call, constant harassment by police.   

Those who are homeless and live in RVs led a caravan through Downtown San Diego on Thursday hoping to drive home their message and their plight."

"SAN DIEGO (KUSI) — A major lawsuit was filed against the City of San Diego Thursday for violating the rights of the homeless and the disabled homeless. 

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the hundreds of people who live in their cars and RV’s. 

After years of tickets and towing, the homeless are fighting back. 

SAN FRANCISCO – Chariot Transit, Inc. has entered a landmark settlement agreement with the United States Attorney’s Office to resolve allegations that the San Francisco-based company violated Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by discriminating against customers with disabilities, announced United States Attorney Brian J. Stretch.  As part of the settlement, Chariot will pay a $50,000 civil penalty to the United States and take numerous steps to ensure that it provides equivalent service to individuals with disabilities....

By Adolfo Guzman-Lopez

West Los Angeles College and the Los Angeles Community College District are defendants in a trial set to start on Tuesday that alleges the college and the district blocked three students’ access to an education...

SACRAMENTO – Secretary of State Alex Padilla has certified two new remote accessible vote-by-mail systems for use in California elections. California is the first state to certify these types of systems, which provide an accessible option for citizens with disabilities to mark their vote-by-mail ballots privately and independently...

"Despite Ann’s determination to betray no emotion, a drop of sweat rolled down her temple as a guard painstakingly examined her lunch items. That Sunday morning, she had taken two buses, two trains and a shuttle to get from her home to the New York state psychiatric facility where her son is confined. Frustrated, she pushed back a little, but just a little, when the guard took away two sealed bottles of fruit-flavored water, a special treat that Ann had made an extra stop to buy.

"Over 45,000 people with psychiatric or developmental disabilities died while living at a California state hospital or developmental center between the 1880’s and 1960’s. Many were buried anonymously in unmarked or mass graves and did not receive recognition or acknowledgment as human beings, in life or in death.

"Elisabeth Heflin is exhausted.

She’s been by her 15-year-old daughter Kaitlyn’s side while she suffers debilitating seizures. She administers Kaitlyn’s daily doses of medication and makes sure her feeding tubes are working properly. Kaitlyn receives nutrient-rich fluids intravenously at all hours of the day and night. Heflin, a single mom, is her daughter’s round the clock caregiver.

"Facing criticism from parents over the decision to house students in the Adult Transition Program (ATP) in two portable classrooms on the new Earl Warren Middle School campus, the San Dieguito Union High School District (SDUHSD) invited parents to to tour the facility and participate in a special meeting July 28 on the campus.

"An 80-year-old dementia patient fell from his bed and died at Valley Convalescent Hospital in February, something a state public health investigation determined this month came as a direct result of poor care at that facility.

"One out of every 100 special education students was restrained by school personnel or secluded in school from his or her peers in the 2013-14 school year, presumably to quell behavior that teachers considered disruptive or dangerous.

Why GAO Did This Study

"The number of individuals with disabilities under age 18 receiving SSI benefits increased by about 44 percent from 2000 through 2016. Youth ages 14 to 17 with disabilities face many challenges achieving self-sufficiency as they transition to adulthood. GAO was asked to examine SSA's efforts to encourage employment for these transition-age youth.

"South LA Strangulation Still Haunts Detective

"I can only imagine the fear he must've had as this was happening to him. And the fact that he suffered," he said.

"OAKLAND — People in the industry call it “housing of last resort.”

Scattered throughout Alameda County, there are perhaps 200 to 300 such facilities — some in the form of single-family homes tucked into quiet residential neighborhoods or single-room occupancy hotels dotting downtown Oakland, Hayward, Berkeley and Alameda. Still others are nondescript apartment buildings lining main streets in East and West Oakland. The one thing most have in common is the people living there have few other options.

"Some of the victims can't speak. They rely on walkers and wheelchairs to leave their beds. They have been robbed of their memories. They come to nursing homes to be cared for.

"Armando Reagan was 30 when he bled to death, rushed from a Southern California nursing home as blood soaked his sheets, pooled on the floor and as he pleaded with staff: “Help! Help! I do not want to die!” according to state public health records.

"Below a simple granite headstone in a peaceful section of the Russian River Cemetery in Ukiah lie the remains of hundreds of people, a reminder of a dark, 80-year period during which people confined to the local state mental hospital during life were, after death, buried in unmarked graves, then forgotten.

“Let no person ever be laid to rest without recognition,” the headstone reads in part.

"For decades, patients who entered the gates of California mental hospitals were all but cut off from the rest of society – even after death.

From the 1880s into the 1960s, the lives of about 45,000 patients at Napa State Hospital and other state institutions ended not with a casket and headstone, but with unmarked graves or the scattering of anonymous ashes in obscure fields.

"Today, more than 1 million students are trapped in an education system that wasn’t built for them. That system wasn’t designed to accommodate their disabilities—the kinds of intellectual, cognitive, communicative, and physical conditions that often conjure images of people reliant on wheelchairs and aides, of individuals consigned to dreary, isolated lives. Many of the public schools they attend rest on the assumption that those stereotypes are inevitable truths."