Posts Tagged ‘Advocacy’

Blind Parents: Be Empowered!

Join the National Federation of the Blind of California blind parents group for their first-ever seminar. This seminar promises to be informative and interactive. You will:

When: Saturday June 9, 2012 from 10:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Where: California School for the Blind Theater, 500 Walnut Avenue, Fremont, CA 94536

For more information or to RSVP please contact Angela Fowler via email at: fowlers@syix.com or call 530-902-0987. Lunch will be provided. Childcare will not be provided.

For more information about the National Federation of the Blind of California please visit: www.nfbcal.org.

Urgent: The Braille and Talking Book Library Needs Your Help

The Braille and Talking Book Library, in Sacramento, desperately needs your help. Funding was removed from the current Budget Act that was not used for library services, but which served to meet matching fund requirements necessary to obtain the federal funding that enables the Braille and Talking Book Library to operate. Loss of these state funds means that federal funds can also be lost.

Please urge the Budget Subcommittees to amend this upcoming budget to include that matching fund money so that the library will not be threatened with dramatic service cuts. The Senate Budget Subcommittee Number 1 on Education Finance will hold a hearing covering library services on Thursday, May 3 at 9:30 a.m. or upon adjournment of the Senate, in Room 3191 of the State Capitol. A similar hearing will be held by the Assembly Subcommittee on Budget Education Finance on Wednesday, May 9 at 4:00 p.m. in Room 126 of the State Capitol.

Come to these hearings and make your feelings known. If you can’t, please contact the members of these subcommittees. The rosters are shown below.

Senate subcommittee:

Senator Carol Liu, Chair
Phone: 916-6514021
Email: carol.liu@sen.ca.gov

Senator Ted Gaines
Phone: 916-6514001
Email: ted.gaines@sen.ca.gov

Senator Rod Wright
Phone: 916-6514025
Email: roderick.wright@sen.ca.gov

Assembly Budget Subcommittee on Education Finance:

Susan Bonilla, Chair
Phone: 916-3192011
Email: susan.bonilla@asm.ca.gov

Assemblyman Bill Berryhill
Phone: 916-3192026
Email: bill.berryhill@asm.ca.gov

Assemblywoman Julia Brownley
Phone: 916-3192041
Email: Julia.brownley@asm.ca.gov

Assemblyman Brian Nestande
Phone: 916-3192064
Email: brian.nestande@asm.ca.gov

Assemblyman Sandre Swanson
Phone: 916-3192016
Email: sander.swanson@asm.ca.gov

Focus Groups for Blind and Visually Impaired Clipper Card Users

Do you have a Clipper Card and have you had trouble using it? If so, please join the LightHouse and Disability Rights Advocates for a focus group of blind users to talk about situations and issues such as the following:

• Difficulty finding the machines to tag your Clipper Card when riding BART or Caltrain
• Difficulty determining if you have properly tagged your card
• Trouble using your Clipper Card on another local transit system
• Difficulty registering your Regional Transit Connection Card (RTC) on the Clipper Card website

You can participate in the discussion in either San Francisco or Berkeley. To RSVP contact Beth Berenson at bberenson@lighthouse-sf.org.

San Francisco
April 19: 6:30 to 8:00 p.m.
LightHouse San Francisco Headquarters

Berkeley
May 8: 6:30 to 8:00 p.m.
LightHouse satellite office at the Ed Roberts Campus
3075 Adeline St., Ste. 110, Berkeley

Accessibility Problems with your Citibank Account?

Attorneys Timothy Elder and Scott LaBarre are interested in speaking with any blind business owners or employees who have attempted to open or use a business bank account at Citibank. They are particularly interested to hear if you have had any problems with accessing the website interface for your account or entering your password without sighted assistance. Interested individuals can contact Timothy Elder by email at telder@trelegal.com or by phone at 410-415-3493.

Scholarship to Attend NFB Convention in Dallas – Apply by March 16

The East Bay Chapter of the National Federation of the Blind of California is granting $500 to a lucky somebody to help get them to their first national convention of the National Federation of the Blind, NFB. The convention will be held in Dallas, Texas, from June 30 to July 5, 2012.

If you are blind, at least 18 years of age, a legal resident of California and have never been to an NFB national convention, then you may qualify to receive $500 to go to your first one. (Minors will be considered only with the understanding that they MUST be accompanied by a parent or legal guardian and that there will be no additional grant funds to supplement the additional individual.)

How to Apply
The grantee will be selected by the board of the East Bay Chapter and notified thereafter. Submissions must be received/postmarked by March 16^th, 2012. Electronic submissions should be emailed to nfbceastbay@gmail.com. Please include “Grant for Dallas” in the subject line. Print or braille submissions are also welcome and should be mailed to Serena Olsen, President, NFBC East Bay, 34904 Herringbone Ct., Union City, CA 94587.

Please provide your name, address, phone number and email. In 50 words or less, write something fun or interesting about yourself and in 250 words or less, answer the following two questions:

• Why is attending national convention important to you?
• What kinds of things do you hope to learn from the national convention experience?

If selected, preliminary expenses (airfare, registration, etc.) must be covered by the grantee. Grant funds will be disbursed upon arrival at the convention. By accepting the grant, you are committed to attending the rookie roundup, general session, banquet and a local chapter meeting immediately following convention to share your experience.

About Convention
Every year, 3,000 people from around the country—and even from around the world—attend the NFB national convention. The convention agenda is action-packed and filled with workshops, seminars, division meetings and great speakers on just about any blindness-related topic you can imagine. From sports and recreation to education, from lawyers to guide dog users, from cane travel to braille, from assistive technology to employment, you’ll find students, working blind professionals and mentors and make lasting friendships and connections. To learn more go to http://www.nfb.org/nfb/national_convention.asp.

Share Your Input at Feb. 17 Demo of Taxi POS Device

Taxis in San Francisco now feature point-of-sale terminals that let passengers pay for their fares with a card without having to hand it over to the driver. The current model of these POS devices is inaccessible.

On Friday, February 17 at 10:30 a.m., the LightHouse (214 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco) will host a demonstration of a potentially accessible POS device for taxis. This is your chance to give community feedback on the accessibility of these devices. For more information or to RSVP, please contact Frank Welte at 415-694-7363 or fwelte@lighthouse-sf.org.

CCB Spring 2012 Convention Scheduled for April

The California Council of the Blind will hold its spring conference and convention from Thursday, April 12 through Sunday, April 15, 2012. The conference and convention will take place at the Crowne Plaza SFO Hotel, 1177 Airport Blvd., Burlingame, CA 94010. For more information call the CCB office at 800-221-6359, or visit their website at www.ccbnet.org.

Have you Had Problems Using Clipper Cards?

Disability Rights Advocates is investigating complaints regarding barriers that blind or visually impaired persons have experienced attempting to tag on or tag off at Caltrain stations using Clipper Cards.

If you have been unable to successfully tag on or tag off using a Clipper Card at a Caltrain station, have been unable to locate Clipper Card tagging machines due to the absence of tactile directional floor tiles, or have had to seek the assistance of a sighted person due to the inaccessibility of Clipper Card tagging machines, Disability Rights Advocates would like to talk to you. To share your stories, please contact Scott Murray by phone at 510-665-8644 or by e-mail at smurray@dralegal.org.

LightHouse and Blind Individuals File Class Action Lawsuit against Redbox for Failing to Provide Accessible Self-Service Kiosks

Recent technological advances are sweeping the nation, changing the way people buy products and services. Self-service kiosks with automated, touch-screen interfaces now allow people to bank, shop and conduct a wide range of transactions independently, without the assistance of a clerk. This technology is fast becoming an integral part of our everyday lives.

Although these technologies can make our lives easier, Redbox, a video rental giant, has chosen to use self-service kiosks with touch-screen controls that exclude the blind from using its services. Blind Californians cannot use touch-screen kiosks that offer only visually based controls.

A class action lawsuit filed today in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California challenges Redbox’s inaccessible kiosks. The lawsuit is the first of its kind in the country. The suit is brought by the LightHouse, as well as five blind individuals, on behalf of blind and visually impaired people throughout California.

Plaintiffs are represented by Disability Rights Advocates (DRA), a non-profit disability rights legal center headquartered in Berkeley, California, that specializes in high-impact cases on behalf of people with disabilities. Plaintiffs are also represented by the Law Offices of Jay Koslofsky; Mr. Koslofsky is an experienced civil rights attorney.

Redbox has a major share of the video rental market. Redbox DVD rentals account for approximately 34% of the DVD rental market nationwide. According to Redbox, almost 60 million videos are rented from its kiosks nationally each month. Redbox kiosks can be found at thousands of businesses throughout California including Save Mart, which is a business that is also named as a defendant in the lawsuit.

For generations, blind and visually impaired people have watched and enjoyed movies as an ordinary part of daily life. Blind people with some remaining vision may watch films on their own or with sighted friends and family who can describe the details and actions of a film. In addition, many blind people enjoy watching dialogue-driven films.

Plaintiff Lisamaria Martinez is a legally blind resident of Union City, California. ”I love watching movies with my husband and son and would like to independently rent movies for my family at Redboxes,” Martinez said.

Plaintiff Joshua Saunders is a legally blind resident of El Cerrito, California, who enjoys watching movies with friends and family. “I’m not asking for the world here but simply for the ability to rent DVDs from Redboxes just like everyone else can,” Saunders said.

Redbox’s inaccessible touch-screen kiosks shut out a large and growing community of blind Californians. It is estimated that 100,000 Californians are legally blind and as the population continues to age, the number of adults with vision loss will increase.

The technology exists to make self-service kiosks accessible to the blind. Accessible ATMs and iPhones make use of tactile controls and/or screen reading software that enables blind people to use these devices.

“A lack of accessibility in newly emerging forms of commerce is a symptom of the overall growing technological divide that blind people experience when companies fail to build in accessible features at the onset,” said Bryan Bashin, LightHouse Executive Director/CEO.

“Technology is a double-edged sword. It has the power to enable millions, but it can disable many Americans far more than it enables them if accessibility is not built into technology at the beginning,” said Jay Koslofsky, plaintiffs’ attorney of the Law Offices of Jay Koslofsky.

“Redbox is shutting out thousands of Californians from its services because it refuses to make its technology accessible to blind consumers,” said Michael Nunez, plaintiffs’ attorney of Disability Rights Advocates.

About Disability Rights Advocates (DRA)
Disability Rights Advocates is a non-profit legal center which, for nearly twenty years, has specialized in high-impact class action litigation on behalf of people with all types of disabilities. DRA litigates nationally and has offices in New York City and Berkeley, California.

About Law Offices of Jay Koslofsky
Jay Koslofsky is an attorney in private practice with more than 30 years of experience. He specializes in civil rights cases and class action litigation.

Disability Rights Advocates Seeks Comments About Pedestrian Pathway Barriers

The LightHouse has partnered with Disability Rights Advocates on a number of issues that affect our blind and visually impaired community. The following request illustrates the scope of the problem that affects our community.

Disability Rights Advocates (DRA), a non-profit legal center, is investigating complaints regarding barriers that people with mobility impairments and people who are blind or low vision have encountered at areas of construction or other work zones along pedestrian routes.

When pedestrian paths are closed or partially blocked due to construction, maintenance or other conditions, any pedestrian detours or the remaining unblocked pathway that is provided must be accessible.

If you have a mobility impairment, are blind or have low vision, and have experienced any of the following barriers when pedestrian pathways are affected by construction or other activities, we would like to hear from you:

- Pedestrian detours without ramps over sharp vertical steps, drop-offs or curbs
- Use of yellow tape to alert pedestrians to the detour or of the hazardous condition
- Use of unsecured cones or A-frames to alert pedestrians of the temporary route or condition
- Pedestrian detours that have steep slopes or cross-slopes
- Lack of detectable warnings at pedestrian detours that cross roads or vehicle traffic
- Objects protruding into the path of travel along the pedestrian detour
- Pedestrian detours that are less than 36 inches wide
- Narrowing of the existing pathway to less than 36 inches wide
- Open trenches or other hazardous conditions posing dangers to pedestrians
- Use of signage that is only accessible to sighted pedestrians
- Loose gravel, unsecured plywood or other terrain that is not firm, stable and slip-resistant
- Other hazardous or inaccessible conditions along pedestrian detours

If you have encountered barriers like these, please let us know. Send a description of the barrier, along with any cell phone or other photos you can take of the problem, to PedDetours@dralegal.org. Please include your name and contact information as well.

We would appreciate any details about the barrier that you can provide, including:

- The location of the barrier
- When you encountered it
- Whether the barrier seems very short-term
- Whether the barrier seems longer-term
- Who appears to have created the barrier
- Who has jurisdiction over the blocked pathway

You can also reach us by phone. Call Zack Duffly at 510-665-8644 to share your story.