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Enough is enough!

July 18, 2012  |  AAPD

A coalition of disability rights groups – including ADAPT, the American Association of People with Disabilities, National Council on Independent Living, the National Disability Rights Network, and over 50 local and state disability rights groups and service providers – are leading a campaign to push back against the hotel industry's attack on the Americans with Disabilities Act. This campaign includes a boycott, media campaign, direct action and continued efforts to to educate regulators, lawmakers, and appointed officials on this issue.

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In 10 days we’ll celebrate 22 years of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Believe it or not, our civil rights are under attack!!!

That’s right.  The hotel industry and their high-paid lobbyists are spending their summer trying to ruin ours—trying to get out of making their pools accessible and pushing Congress to help them do it.

They call themselves the “hospitality” industry but this is NOT hospitality for millions of people with disabilities.

The American Hotel & Lodging Association and the Asian American Hotel Owners Association are leading the charge to roll back the ADA. 

We’ll lead the charge and roll the lobbyists right back!!

CONTACT the hotel lobbyists and tell them to cease their attacks on the ADA!

TAKE THIS ACTION NOW!!

For more information, check out our coalition campaign website.

BOYCOTT the hotels that the groups’ leaders own.  The groups’ executive committees are keeping up the fight against our rights—we’re NOT going to reward them with our business! Check out our Speak Out page for a list of hotels to avoid.

SHOW THE HOTELS THAT ACCESSIBILITY IS GOOD FOR BUSINESS; FIGHTING AGAINST US IS NOT: when booking hotels call and ask if they have a pool and if so do they have a fixed or portable lift. If they don’t, bring your business elsewhere.  When you find a hotel with a pool lift, post it on our Facebook page.

SHOW THE FULL POWER OF OUR COMMUNITY—GET YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY ON BOARD!!!!


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Comments

Submitted by AAPD at 05:19 PM on September 4, 2012
Hi Carol- That's awesome! Thanks for bringing this to our attention and for calling around. Best,AAPD
Submitted by Carol at 07:12 PM on September 3, 2012
I notice on your list of hotels that Hawaii was not included. I live in Hawaii and my sister who has Multiple Scelrosis lives in Washington. She hasn't been home for 31 years. So,I started today to call hotels in Hawaii to see if they had rooms with roll-in showers and pools with chair lifts. I will post it on your Facebook page later today. I only called 10 hotels on Oahu so far but I will attempt eventually call all hotels. Most of the hotels had both roll-in showers and pool chair lifts. Thank you
Submitted by James Pepper at 06:56 PM on August 3, 2012
Hey, wake up, our civil rights are gone! The United States National Voter Registration form for people who speak Spanish speaks in English when you turn on a screen reader for the blind. This is a direct violation of the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act, Executive Oder 12166, ADA and the Rehabilitation Act. What are you going to do about it? The form for people who speak English is not accessible and you still have to get someone to help you fill it out. The form requires the blind to draw a map on the back of the form, by locating a drawing that represents an intersection and you must label it and then draw an X to represent your house and then draw in buildings all relative to each other and labeled. The blind cannot see the map. The Hopi Indians cannot draw this map because they live on the range, on the land and if there is a street it is a dirt road, so they have been denied the right to vote because of this form. This is a direct violation of the Voting Rights Act, the Rehabilitation Act and ADA. What are you going to do about it? Four years ago Jim Dickson the Vice President of the AAPD presented my accessible voter registration forms to the Elections Assistance Commission, and they were made so the blind could fill them out all by themselves without assistance using free screen readers and they could mail it in just like anyone else. The EAC thanked me for reminding them that they had to make the forms and they wrote to me stating that their web design company was in charge of making the form accessible to the blind, not the agency, the web design company, even though the agency was created by the Help America Vote Act of 2002 and they claimed they spent research funds researching this problem. Where did the money go? A year later the Director of the EAC wrote a letter to Congress stating he tested it and that Jim Dickson was on his board so it must be accessible. Then why did Jim Dickson present my forms to them to make them accessible? The Director either lied to Congress or he made the forms purposely inaccessible to attack the civil rights of the blind. What are you going to do about it? I have improved my forms, so all you need is a PC or a Mac and it is backwards compatible to Windows XP to read and interact with the documents. This format was tested by the NFB when I made some social security forms when I was in contact with the CIO of Social Security, they were going to issue a grant to see my process of accessibility but that was dependent on a budget being passed. Still waiting, but I am making the forms now and will also make them accessible to Section 203 languages such as Hindi, Chinese, Vietnamese, etc. accessible to the blind using free screen readers. Here are videos of the US National Voter Registration forms and the discrimination and other voting systems that are supposed to be accessible. It is a big lie. Millions of people are being denied the right to vote using an old tactic, by making sure the voter registration form is inaccessible. What are you going to do about it? http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD19A280C1FC09009

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