Disability Technology & News

Berkeley, CA 2007 Most Accessible City

As a resident of Berkeley, I’m very proud of my city for its progressive approaches in creating environments and policies that are disability friendly. Being the birth place of the Disability Rights Movements, Berkeley has served as a beacon for the rest of the nation in the area of disability planning. The depth of social services, city planning, and outreach makes makes Berkeley & the Bay Area the best place to live.

The article does a great job highlighting some of the programs and developments the city has to offers for people with disabilities. However, the article did not mention one unique accessibility feature the city offer, that is the automatic handicap push button inside & outside all new stores built in Berkeley since 2005.

City wins disability award
Kristin Bender / MediaNews
March 27, 2007
Source: East Bay Daily News

Berkeley was the first city in the nation to provide curb cuts for wheelchairs. But that happened more than 35 years ago and the city has done much more to help disabled people in recent years, according to a national disabled rights organization.

For its efforts, Berkeley today will receive a $25,000 check from the Washington, D.C.-based National Organization on Disability in recognition of its focus on disability issues and design of successful programs, services and facilities for residents and visitors with disabilities. Chicago was runner-up and will receive $10,000.

“It’s a really great honor and I think it’s really appropriate that Berkeley be receiving it,” said Dmitri Belser, chairman of the city’s Disability Commission and president of the Ed Roberts Campus, a one-stop center for disabled people being built at the Ashby BART station. “Berkeley has been a real mecca for people with disabilities for many years.”

The money could be used for an accessible City CarShare vehicle, but plans were not firm late Monday, city officials said.

Earlier this year the National Organization on Disability named Berkeley the most “accessible city in the United States” because it had the first universally designed affordable housing development, free and reduced-price taxi services, and emergency attendant care and transportation services funded by a self-imposed tax. The city also has programs promoting artists with disabilities, and internship and mentor programs for youths with disabilities.

What’s more, Belser said, many agencies such as Through the Looking Glass, the Center for Independent Living and Belser’s own the Center for Accessible Technology started in Berkeley. “From those agencies, national agencies started,” he said.

While Berkeley has made strides for disabled people in the past, it now is looking to improve their future by building the $45 million Ed Roberts Campus.

The 86,000-square-foot center will house the offices of seven disability service and advocacy organizations, including legal advocacy, job training, parenting support and wheelchair sports.

It will have fully accessible meeting rooms, a computer/media resource center, a fitness center, a cafe and a child care center.

Fundraising for the project is now 75 percent complete, with groundbreaking expected by the end of the year, said project manager Caleb Dardick. The center is slated to open in fall 2009.

Fundraisers have secured $33.7 million in grants and pledges so far, but more is needed, Dardick said.

The center’s namesake, Roberts, had polio and was an early leader in the city’s independent-living movement, as well as a student who helped pave the way for disabled student services at the University of California, Berkeley. Roberts died in 1995 at age 56.

Berkeley was chosen as the most accessible city in the nation by national disability advocates and experts. Criteria for receiving the honor included access to jobs, education, religious worship, voting, transportation, housing and emergency preparedness planning.

“There is a lot of things that happen here that are very innovative and a lot of very powerful thinkers here,” said Belser.

Among those attending the ceremony today will be Belser, Mayor Tom Bates and Susan O’Hara, the former director of UCB Disabled Students program who has done work with a documentation project on the disability rights movement at the Bancroft Library. Representatives from the National Organization on Disability also will be at the event.

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