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Inside Disability In The New Millenium — p. 4
Volume 10, Number 11
Legislative Roundtable — Page 2
SOURCES
December 10, 1999
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“We should never get too tired or too sophisticated to march.” — Martin Luther King, Sr.
RESOURCES
December 10, 1999
METRO MOBILITY Users Unhappy, Possible Violation Of Federal Law by Jeff Nygaard “Why does this always happen?” That was the plaintive question heard from an elderly patron of Metro Mobility upon being picked up late on a Saturday night, more than two hours after her scheduled pick-up time. This is not an isolated story. In dozens of interviews with advocates, employers, users, and others who have contact with the system, it became clear to ACCESS PRESS that the Twin Cities Metro Mobility system is increasingly perceived to be unreliable by its patrons.
Work Incentives Bill Passes Congress by Anita Boucher
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n November 19th, Congress passed national work incentives legislation called the “Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Improvement Act of 1999.” The Act is expected to be signed by the President in early December. While this legislation represents a significant national commitment to removing policy barriers to employment of people with disabilities, it won’t change federal rules overnight. Instead, the bill opens the door to a number of changes that are expected to unfold over the next 5 to 10 years. This article attempts to summarize the highlights of the Act, based on information cur-
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rently available. Ticket to Work and Self-Sufficiency Program Establishes vouchers, called “Tickets to Work and SelfSufficiency,” which people with disabilities can use to obtain services from a public or private employment network of their choice. Employment networks will be paid by the Social Security Administration (SSA), based on their success in helping individuals secure and maintain employment. Within one year after the bill is signed by the President, SSA is required to develop regulations detailing how the “Ticket” program will work.
The program will be phased in across the country within 3 years after the regulations are published. Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Advisory Panel Creates a 12-member panel to advise the President, Congress and SSA on issues related to work incentives for people with disabilities. Initial members are to be appointed within 90 days after the President signs the bill. Disability Reviews Starting January 1, 2002, SSA will not conduct reviews to determine whether a person who has received benefits
Incentives - cont. on p. 7
One Bloomington resident told the story of having only one day in a two-week period on which he was able to successfully schedule his round-trip to work. Since the cab fare needed to “rescue” him was costing him almost more than his part-time job was paying, he was forced to quit his job. As he told ACCESS PRESS, “When I filled out the resignation form, there was a space for ‘Reason for quitting,’ and I put ‘Cannot get reliable transportation from Metro Mobility.’” Stories abound of users being “left out in the cold,” both literally and figuratively. One employee at the Courage Center recently stood outside the building until 7:30 pm, waiting for her 4 o’clock pickup. Another patron tried to schedule a ride to the Mall of America on a recent Saturday, but had to cancel the trip when Metro Mobility could not accommodate his request for a return trip despite his offering to return anytime between one o’clock and eight o’clock pm.
Many riders say that trip denials are particularly bad during rush hours. Kris Lyndon-Wilson of the Citizen’s League Seniors & Disability in 2030 Task Force Committee said that “We have stopped scheduling meetings at 4:30 pm, because [committee members tell us that] Metro Mobility will not be able to get people there on time.” Scott Rostron, staff member at the Minnesota State Council on Disability and Metro Mobility user, says, “If I need to get somewhere before 8 am, I don’t even bother to call Metro Mobility.” These individual anecdotes are reinforced by comments from numerous staff people who work in the community and deal with transportation issues as they affect people with disabilities. For example, one skilled nursing facility reports that they now use multiple transportation services, as they do not feel that they can fully count on Metro Mobility. A staff person in the Human Resources department at the JC Penney Regional Service Center in Bloomington told ACCESS PRESS that “We have had a couple of employees who have had to quit due to transportation, and others who are still here are having [transportation] problems.” Scott Rostron at the State Council on Disability, who gave the personal anecdote quoted above, also spoke in his capacity as a Council employee, saying, “I frequently get calls from people who can’t get to their classes, who can’t get to their jobs, or who are trying to get their work schedules changed due to problems with transportation.”
Linda Wolford, Director of Disability and Consumer Advocacy at the Courage Center, stated that “Transportation is the number one issue we hear in the advocacy department at Courage Center.” Perhaps the issue was best summed up by a staff person who is involved in transportation planning for residents of the Good Samaritan Center in Minneapolis, a high-rise residential facility with a large number of people with disabilities. As she put it, “There are some problems with really being able to plan your life.” Statistics and the Law Metro Mobility reports that their official “denial rate” the percentage of requests for rides that they cannot provide - is usually about four percent, although they acknowledge that it has been “creeping up a little bit” recently. While four percent may not seem like a high number, consider that Metro Mobility provides upwards of 80,000 rides every month during the winter. That four percent figure translates into 100 or more people being denied rides every day in the Twin Cities. Some advocates suspect that the official statistics on trip denials may understate the true extent of the problem. They point out that some unknown number of Twin Cities paratransit users have dropped out of organizations, have quit their jobs, or have stopped calling Metro Mobility entirely because they believe that it cannot meet their needs. John Tschida, Director of Public Policy and Research at the Courage Center in Golden Metro Mobility- cont. on p. 6
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