Day In Washington: the Disability Policy Podcast

Emily Ladau is our guest on this episode of Day In Washington. Listen as she shares some of what she has learn throughout her life, and what policy issue she is most concerned about.

Bio

Emily Ladau is a passionate disability rights activist, writer, speaker, and digital communications consultant whose career began at the age of 10, when she appeared on several episodes of Sesame Street to educate children about her life with a physical disability. In 2017, she was named as one of Adelphi University’s 10 Under 10 Young Alumni. In 2018, she was awarded the Paul G. Hearne Emerging Leader Award from the American Association of People with Disabilities.

Emily is the Editor in Chief of the Rooted in Rights Blog, a platform focused on amplifying authentic writing on disability rights issues. And, she is a co-host of The Accessible Stall Podcast.

Emily’s writing has been published on websites including The New York Times, SELF, Salon, Vice, and Huffington Post. Emily has spoken before numerous audiences, ranging from a panel about the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act at the U.S. Department of Education, to a keynote presentation at the 2018 TASH Conference.

All of Emily’s activism is driven by her belief that if we want the world to be accessible to people with all types of disabilities, we must make ideas and concepts surrounding disability accessible to the world.

Links

Hello and welcome to Day in Washington, your disability policy podcast. I’m your host Day Al-Mohamed working to make sure you stay informed. 

I know everyone was watching the news about the Hacienda HealthCare facility in Phoenix, Arizona, where a 29-year-old patient had been raped several times, and the staff had no idea she was pregnant until she went into labor and gave birth to a healthy baby boy on December 29th.

Originally the story posted that she was in a coma. That has been corrected by her parents who described her as intellectually disabled because of seizures in early childhood. While she doesn't speak, she has some mobility in her limbs, head and neck. She also responds to sound and can make facial gestures. What bothers me is that this isn’t some piece of meat on a table but that this was a vulnerable woman who was well aware of what was being done to her.

Nathan Sutherland was the nurse who was supposed to be looking after her; and instead raped her. He was arrested in January after Phoenix police said his DNA was tied to the baby. Last month, his attorney said there was "minimum evidence" his client committed the crime. Really? The first of what will probably be many hearings, was yesterday.

But let’s get real here. People with disabilities are sexually assaulted at nearly three times the rate of people without disabilities.

A 2005 survey of people with disabilities indicated that 60 percent of respondents had been subjected to some form of unwanted sexual activity. Unfortunately, almost half never reported the assault.

Approximately 80% of women and 30% of men with developmental disabilities have been sexually assaulted. The part that is really awful? Just 3% of them are ever reported.

The vast majority of sexual assaults, 80 to 90%, are committed by someone the victim knows. And for many people with disabilities, comes from caregivers.

The only reason Nathan Sutherland was caught, was because the woman gave birth. Notice, I didn’t say “got pregnant” because a very small, very jaded part of me wonders if some facilities don’t just “get such things taken care of” out of the light of day.

The #MeToo movement has drawn much attention to sexual harassment and sexual abuse, I can only hope that as it garners more attention and visibility it continues to include disability. As of right now, even with the persistence and support of parents, family members and friends, victims with disabilities are not receiving justice.

What is also disturbing, and is particularly important as related to disability, is that in many instances, the person who has a disability may rely on the perpetrator for care or support, making it even more difficult to come forward. Today, more and more women, including women with disabilities are coming forward to share their stories. We are not looking at just “ways to protect” but examining perpetrators and the structures and institutions that protect them and allow them to continue their behaviors.

If you know of or suspect sexual assault or abuse please contact your local police station or 911. You do not need proof to file a report. If the person being abused is considered a vulnerable adult under your state laws, you may also be able to contact the local Department of Human Services or Department of Social Services.

If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual assault or abuse, to speak with someone wo is trained to help, call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800-656-HOPE (4673). If you are Deaf, you can access help via video phone 1.855.812.1001 (Monday to Friday 9 a.m.—5 p.m. PST) contact the Deaf Abused Women’s Network (DAWN) for legal, medical, system advocacy, and survivor support services. Video Phone: 202.559.5366.

You can also chat online anonymously with a support specialist trained by RAINN...

Hello and welcome to Day in Washington, your disability policy podcast. I’m your host Day Al-Mohamed working to make sure you stay informed.  This is the Disability Report for March 2019.

JUSTICE:   March 1st is known within the disability community as the Disability Day of Mourning. It is the day when the disability community comes together to remember the victims of filicide – people with disabilities who were murdered by their family members. Vigils are held on March 1st in cities around the world. Recognized since 2012, the vigils have been supported by the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, ADAPT, Not Dead Yet, the National Council on Independent Living, the Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund and other disability rights organizations. In March 2017, the Ruderman Foundation issued a report that provided more concrete numbers to the number of people with disabilities murdered by their caregivers.

They documented more than 200 deaths from 2011 to 2015. And of course, that is only those that merited media attention. There currently is no way to capture all of these murders based on disability. And perhaps what is more disturbing is the public perception and media focus on the killer rather than on the victim. It is seen as a “mercy” or as “ending suffering” or an “overwhelmed caregiver” in fact blaming the victim for their own death. One person with disabilities is killed by a parent or caregiver each week and the Disability Day of Mourning is a recognition of those lives taken, and lives forgotten as worth less than those of able bodied.

On Media Coverage of Murder of People with Disabilities by their Caregivers - https://issuu.com/rudermanfoundation/docs/murders_by_caregivers_wp_final_fina

 

DEFINITIONS: Words matter. We know this. We’ve been told this over and over. James Skoufis of the 39th Senate District of the State of New York is taking that to heart. He is the sponsor of Senate Bill S4276. The bill makes technical corrections to references to the Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities, changing it to the Office for People with Developmental Disabilities. It is not an office for the condition, but for people.

Legislation for changes in statute the Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities - https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2019/s4276

 

HEALTHCARE:  The Charles and Margery Barancik Foundation and Gulf Coast Community Foundation commissioned the University of South Florida to conduct a scan of mental health services in May 2018. The goal was to identify strengths and gaps in the system and prioritize ways to make the system work for youth and families. The study revealed the annual economic cost of untreated mental illness for children and young adults in Sarasota County is nearly $86.2 million. This is primarily from suicide, criminal justice, education, and worker productivity.

Roughly 15 percent of Sarasota County’s residents are under 18 years old, or around 60,488. About one in five experiences a severe mental disorder during their life. Half of all chronic illness begins by the age of 14, and three-quarters by the age of 24.

Florida ranks 50th in mental health services, according to the Florida Policy Institute. The state has the third-highest percentage of mentally ill persons who are also uninsured.

In 2014, the state provided just $36.05 per person in support of mental health services, less than one-third of the U.S. average of $125.90.

The study specifically highlighted a lack of inpatient care, residential treatment programs, independent living options for adults, case management, post-discharge services from crisis stabilization units, and youth psychiatric treatment.

The study doesn’t solve the problem but it puts hard numbers and a price to what many disabili...

Hello and welcome to Day in Washington, your disability policy podcast. I’m your host Day Al-Mohamed working to make sure you stay informed.  Today, I want to take a few minutes to talk about the recent college admissions scandal, reflect a bit on what happened, and what it means for students with disabilities. 

It is impossible to look at the news in the last few weeks and not hear about the college admissions cheating scandal. Operation Varsity Blues was an FBI operation that resulted in 50 people being charged with bribery and mail fraud. They were part of a complex cheating scheme to get unqualified children of rich parents into elite colleges.

One of the key elements that impacts the disability community is how, affluent parents paid to have their children diagnosed with learning disabilities so they could get special accommodations on the SAT and ACT college entrance exams. Those accommodations can include extra time on tests or allowing them to take their exam in a room alone with just a proctor to minimize distractions.

This is not a new discovery. In 2010, a California audit of College Board test takers “showed a disproportionate number of white, affluent students receiving accommodations, igniting suspicions of exaggerated or nonexistent disabilities”. In 2006, ABC reported the practice of “diagnosis shopping?—?a cottage industry of doctors and medical professionals, all willing to give students the documentation they need to get the extra test time they want.”

Why the sudden increase and interest in using a learning disability to get a “leg up”? It actually goes back to 2003 where the College Board had been sued. Previously they "flagged" the scores of students who took the SAT with extra time. I remember being pissed that my tests were “flagged”. I didn’t want a college application committee to know about and/or judge me by my disability until I chose to disclose it. The flagging intimated that my scores weren’t as “valid” as a non-disabled student’s score. So I was glad to see the practice done away with. After the "flag" was dropped, colleges would have no way of knowing that the test was taken under nonstandard conditions. Of course this now had the unintended side effect of not just reducing the stigma for disabled students but created an INCENTIVE for folks to game the system. You no longer would carry the “scarlet letter D” for disability on your scores.

Let me quote from one of the affidavits that were filed in the case: "What happened is, all the wealthy families that figured out that if I get my kid tested and they get extended time, they can do better on the test. So most of these kids don't even have issues, but they're getting time."

Accommodations, instead of being viewed as a “levelling of the playing field”, were viewed as something advantageous and these people were willing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars, to ensure their children could get them.

And yet, for many families with youth with disabilities, it is a nightmare of providing testing results and proof of disability, and the constantly changing goalposts of what paperwork is needed for desperately needed accommodations. Diagnostic testing is not cheap, running anywhere from about $1,000 to $5,000. And the bureaucracy to getting accommodations approved can take months. Where students without disabilities might be able to take tests multiple times to improve their scores, a student with a disability, because of the paperwork, ongoing testing, proof of disability, checks and rechecks, if they’re lucky, and their timing is right, they just might get their accommodations approved in time to take the test ONCE.

And beyond the cost of testing to prove one’s disability and the timing and planning needed to ensure it is in place, there has always been skepticism in academic fields about accommodations.

INTRODUCTION

Hello and welcome to Day in Washington, your disability policy podcast. I’m your host Day Al-Mohamed working to make sure you stay informed.

POST

Recently I’ve been thinking about bulling. We’re all familiar with what bullying is right? Bullying is unwanted, aggressive behavior (usually among school aged children and youth) that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. The behavior is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time.  It is verbal, it is social, it is physical, it is even digital now with so many young people spending hours on their phones, tablets, and computers.

Michelle Carter was a teenager and when her 18-year-old boyfriend texted her and said he wanted to kill himself, she urged him on. Goaded him into it. He killed himself by filling his truck with carbon monoxide in a parking lot in Fairhaven, Massachusetts. The courts just upheld her manslaughter conviction. The judge ordered her to serve 15 months in prison. But the case isn’t over yet. There are many arguing that she is being punished for “speech.”

A CDC survey in Massachusetts in 2017 found that of nearly 1 million K-12 students, 15 percent reported being bullied in school or online, while 12 percent said they had contemplated suicide. Students with disabilities are bullied more than their non-disabled peers.  In fact, recent studies show they are likely to have been bullied more than three times as much. If you do the maths that is a terrifying number, that is more than 1/3 of kids with disabilities who have contemplated suicide. Even if it doesn’t lead to suicide, bullying can lead to school avoidance and increased absenteeism, dropping grades, an inability to concentrate, anxiety, depression, a loss of interest in academic achievement, and behavioral outbursts in some youth.

In 2014, the Administration sent out a Dear Colleague letter highlighting the impact of bullying on children with disabilities and specifically invoked the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) which requires that each child who has a disability and qualifies for special education and related services must receive a free appropriate public education (FAPE). Basically, that bullying interferes with that access to a free and appropriate public education. The letter also highlighted Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 because the harassment denies a student with a disability an equal opportunity to education.

And of course this isn’t just in person. More and more we are seeing young people bullied and harassed via social media, texts, and other electronic communications.  A recent study showed that 30 percent of youth ages 10-20 reported experiencing some form of online harassment or victimization.

In 2017,  nine senators asked Secretary Betsy DeVos what resources the U.S. Department of Education was providing schools in order to counter "the recent increase in hateful and discriminatory speech and conduct." They also asked for the number of ongoing investigations by the department into student-on-student harrassment based on things like race, religion, and sexual orientation, as well as whether the federal task force on bullying prevention would continue.

And if the Federal government isn’t going to act, some state governments are looking to address the bullying problem themselves.

California schools will be required to implement procedures to prevent bullying and cyberbullying by the end of 2019. In addition to the new procedures, Assembly Bill 2291, authored by Assemblyman David Chiu, D-San Francisco, requires school employees who regularly interact with students to have access to a bullying and cyberbullying training module developed by state officials.

Two additional bills — Assembly Bill 2022 and Senate Bill 972 — approved ...

Hello and welcome to Day in Washington, your disability policy podcast. I’m your host Day Al-Mohamed working to make sure you stay informed.  This is your Disability Report for the week of February 19, 2019.

Housing/International

On January 25th, the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) released a landmark decision in S.A. v. Metro Vancouver Housing Corporation.  In this case, the housing authority wanted to take into account the S.A.’s Henson Trust. For those of you who may not know, Henson Trusts in Canada are like our ABLE Accounts. Ours are tax-advantaged savings accounts for individuals with disabilities and their families. They’re still pretty new here as the ABLE Act only just passed in 2014.

It’s based on the idea that millions of people with disabilities and their families depend on a wide variety of public benefits for income, health care and food and housing assistance. Eligibility for many of these public benefits require meeting a means or resource test that stops people from building any savings for accessible housing, transportation, assistive technology etc.

So the Supreme Court of Canada agreed that Henson Trusts should NOT be considered an asset by the housing authority, allowing Canadian citizens to receive a housing subsidy for accessible housing without bankrupting themselves.

http://www.ccdonline.ca/en/humanrights/litigation/media-advisory-25Jan2019

Employment

In February, the Kessler Foundation and University of New Hampshire released the nTIDE Report focusing on disability employment.

In the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Jobs Report, employment for working-age people with disabilities decreased slightly from 29.9 percent in January 2018 to 29.8 percent in January 2019. For working-age people without disabilities, employment increased from 72.7 percent in January 2018 to 73.6 percent in January 2019.

But what is perhaps a bit more disturbing is the labor force participation rate for working-age people. The labor force participation rate is the percentage of the population that is working or actively looking for work. Employment rates show people who are working and/or not working. This shows those who are still trying to be employed and those who have given up and no longer in the workforce.

For people with disabilities, it was 33 percent in January 2018 and remained at the same level (33 percent) in January 2019. So basically, 67% of people with disabilities are not even participating in the system. Only 33% are in the workforce at all. And that number hasn’t changed. Now lets compare it to working-age people without disabilities, their labor force participation rate increased from 76.1 percent in Jan. 2018 to 76.9 percent in January 2019.

https://iod.unh.edu/article/2019/02/ntide-january-2019-jobs-report-job-numbers-hold-steady-americans-disabilities

Culture

February brings some great news by way of disability culture. New Jersey becomes second state to require schools to teach LGBT and disability-inclusive material. Children in the New Jersey school system will be exposed to "the political, economic, and social contributions of persons with disabilities”. While the focus of the discussion has been primarily on LGBTQ history, having disability included is a big win. California already has such a law in place. Here’s hoping those textbooks get updated with some great suggestions (Beyond Helen Keller and Franklin Delano Roosevelt). I for one, would love to see some people of color with disabilities and their contributions highlighted.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/01/us/new-jersey-lgbt-disability-curriculum-trnd/index.html

Transportation

What most wheelchair users with disability know is that only a quarter of NYC subway stations have elevators. They are also aware that many many of the elevators end up out of service with little to n...

Hello and welcome to Day in Washington, your disability policy podcast. I’m your host Day Al-Mohamed working to make sure you stay informed.  This is your Disability Report for the week of January 7, 2019.

Healthcare

The Missouri Legislative session starts on January 9. Legislation has been pre-filed for the upcoming session that would expand insurance coverage for developmentally disabled individuals.

Therapy for most developmental disabilities can cost up to $100 an hour with individuals sometimes needing multiple sessions a week; sometimes for months or even years. Think about speech therapy or occupational therapy or physical therapy…these are just not one-and-done types of activities. And Insurance plans tend to cap coverage at 20 visits. To make up for that, some families are trying to pay out of pocket and that can total up to more than $15,000 a year.

In 2010, Missouri lawmakers passed a law that provided insurance coverage for therapy for those on the Autism spectrum. The new bill expands that coverage to include those with any developmental disability so would cover conditions such as cerebral palsy and Down Syndrome.

https://www.missourinet.com/2019/01/02/missouri-group-backs-legislation-to-cover-kids-developmental-disabilities/

Education

Mental Health and Schools. Over and over we are told that mental health is as critical as physical health. Nowhere is this as critical as in our school systems. Federal funding in Title IV, Part A of the Every School Succeeds Act (ESSA) passed in 2015 includes a flexible block grant program known as Student Support and Academic Enrichment Grants (SSAEG). These grants would cover activities in three areas:

Programs such as college and career counseling, STEM, arts, civics and International Baccalaureate/Advanced Placement.

Mental health, drug and violence prevention, training on trauma-informed practices, and health and physical education.

Supporting the effective use of technology that is backed by professional development, blended learning and ed tech devices

Roland-Story students in Iowa will now have access to mental health services with Okerberg and Associates, which will provide the services to the district for a 22-week period. The school board also voted to request funds for at-risk and dropout prevention. Roland-Story is requesting $246,000 from the state to support this program.

What is sad to me is that Roland-Story has requested these funds for over a decade.

https://www.amestrib.com/news/20190101/roland-story-approves-agreement-for-mental-health-services

Technology

As a part of the CVAA (the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010) starting from January 1, 2019, any video and computer games in the US must ensure they are accessible to people with disabilities in regards to communications. Failure to comply will allow complaints to be made to the FCC and possible fines. The International Game Developers Association has just put out some information about how games are affected based on their development progress.

In addition to making sure that games are accessible those with disabilities, the creation of the game must have these conditions in mind early in development and involve disabled people in the design or testing process.

Should the game not meet the standards and fail to comply, if a customer complains to the Federal Communications Commission or FCC, then it is possible the developer may be fined. (Of course not all games can be made fully accessible, but the FCC’s job is to mediate and look into efforts to fix the issues).

https://www.dualshockers.com/cvaa-2019-games-to-be-made-accessible-for-disabilities/

Housing

Since the 1970s, in return for access to federal flood insurance,

Hello and welcome to Q&A day here at  Day in Washington. Today’s question comes from a panel I was on as a part of  a Disability session for the State Department. I thought it was a fantastic question so am including it in here. 

QUESTION:

I was wondering if you were comfortable addressing the difference between service animals and support animals and kind of elaborate on the topic of service animals in the workplace.

ANSWER:

Nowadays there are a lot of questions about service animals, service dogs, psychiatric service animals, emotional support animals - I could go on and on - what is the difference and what does the law say. There is a lot of confusion, in part, because there are multiple laws that cover service animals. Even the terminology differs!

Let me start with the Americans with Disabilities Act. That is the law that people are most familiar with. The ADA and its regulations are under the purview of the Department of Justice. Laws are usually pretty vague. Think along the lines such as “thou shalt not discriminate against some with a disability”.  Regulations, written by Federal Agencies flesh that out into the rules of access. So the Department of Justice has detailed out the rules around service animals under the ADA. They just rewrote their regulations on service animals in 2010.

In it they defined a service animal as a, “dog that has been individually trained to do work or perform tasks for an individual with a disability.  The task(s) performed by the dog must be directly related to the person's disability.” These dogs are allowed out in public spaces because they assist the person to actually manage their disability and BE out in these “places of public accommodation.”

Note they specifically only refer to dogs. The original regulations just said “animal” but it is now dogs only.

So….does this count if the dog is for a mental health condition? Yes. If the dog is trained to perform a task that helps mitigate the individual’s disability. So the dog is actually DOING something. A psychiatric service dog, if you will.

Also, let me just add, under the ADA you are NOT required to provide any paperwork or “proof” that the animal is a service animal. You can be asked “Is that a service animal?” and “What task does he/she do for you?” and that is it.

So……..how is this different from an Emotional Support Animal (ESA)?

Well, remember how we were talking about service animals under the Americans with Disabilities Act? And how it is managed by the Department of Justice? Well, the Fair Housing Act deals with discrimination in housing and falls under the purview of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. So this relates to animals and housing NOT out in public (although some folks will try to take ESAs out in public and argue that it is acceptable. Short answer - no it is not).

Their definition includes “Emotional Support Animals” that provide support and help to ameliorate the symptoms of disabilities such as depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Note, unlike DOJ’s definition where the dog is trained to do specific tasks (including to assist with psychiatric health conditions), the emotional support animal helps an individual’s mental health by its companionship alone. It isn’t necessarily trained to do anything. Also note, the Fair Housing Act uses the term “animal” so it not restricted to dogs. There have been cats, birds, reptiles, and many other species. For the Fair Housing Act, all an individual needs to do is provide a letter from their physician stating their need for an emotional support animal.

So now, let’s go to the most recent of laws that talks about service animals – the Air Carrier Access Act (ACAA).  Rather than choosing to follow the DOJ or HUD, they created their own definition that is a bit of a mix of both of the o...

On this episode, we speak with Lainey Feingold about structured negotiation.

Lainey Feingold is a disability rights lawyer focusing on digital access, an international speaker, and the author of Structured Negotiation, A Winning Alternative to Lawsuits.

Structured Negotiation is a collaborative problem-solving strategy with a twenty year track record of resolving complex disability civil rights claims without lawsuits.  Lainey's Structured Negotiation negotiating partners include Bank of America, The City of San Francisco, Walmart, CVS and dozens of other public and private organizations. 

Lainey's book is packed with win-win stories of accessibility advocacy, all without lawsuits.  In 2017 Lainey was named one of the 13 Legal Rebels by the ABA Journal, the national magazine of the American Bar Association.  That year she was also named the individual recipient of the John W. Cooley Lawyer as Problem Solver award, given annually by the Dispute Resolution Section of the ABA. Lainey has twice been recognized with a California Lawyer Attorney of the Year (CLAY) award (2000 and 2014) for her digital accessibility and Structured Negotiation legal work.   

Questions Asked And Answered:

What is structured negotiation?

What makes structured negotiation different from filing lawsuits?

How long can it take?

What made Lainey want to do this work?

What advice does she have for advocates?

Links

link to her web site

To connect with her on Twitter, click here.

To connect with her on Linked In, click here.

Other Items Mentioned

Accessible pedestrean Signals

straw ban

View the transcript of this episode.

Today’s show is about Competitive Integrated Employment. What is it? What does the term mean? Where did it come from? And how does it all intersect with the new Workplace Choice and Flexibility for Individuals with Disabilities Act (HR 5658)?

INTRODUCTION

Hello and welcome to Day in Washington, your disability policy podcast. I’m your host Day Al-Mohamed working to make sure you stay informed.  Recently, there has been a lot of discussion around the Workplace Choice and Flexibility for Individuals with Disabilities Act and competitive integrated employment. Including a massive protest on the Hill by disability group ADAPT.  What is competitive integrated employment? And why all the fuss?

BACKGROUND

This issue actually has a fairly long history and involves more than one law so bear with me as I try to give a bit of context. This is about disability employment and it goes all the way back to the early 1930s. During those years, as a way to encourage employment for as many people as possible, the National Industrial Recover Act (NIRA) created a system of certificates that allowed for productivity-based wages for people with disabilities. Basically, if a person with a disability couldn’t make widgets as fast as the non-disabled guy, the company was allowed to pay him less. Sounds like that makes sense, right? Especially, in a country trying to recover from the Great Depression. It gets as many people jobs as possible. This was made permanent in the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. It is Section 14(c) and formally allows employers to pay wages below the federal minimum to employees who have disabilities.

That same year, the Wagner O’Day Act was passed requiring that all federal agencies purchase certain supplies and services from nonprofit agencies who employed people who are blind. Basically, the government HAD to buy the mops and brooms, made by blind people, in these non-profits. The program was expanded in 1971 to include people who have other significant disabilities and renamed the Javits-Wagner O’Day Act (JWOD). It was renamed again in 2006 as AbilityOne.

So, let me give you a little idea about how big this industry is. Currently, there are more than 600 of these non-profits who produce products and services under the AbilityOne Program and the Federal government MUST buy these products from them. More than mops and brooms, it is now pencils and paper, military uniforms, and beyond physical products, there are contracts for services like cleaning and cafeteria and commissary work.  In FY2015 alone, the Federal Government purchased more $3.2 billion of products and services.

The laws about disability employment start to intersect with the general perception that many of the AbilityOne non-profits use Section 14(c) in segregated work centers aka sheltered workshops. To qualify to an AbilityOne non-profit, at least 75% of the work must be done by people who are blind or have other significant disabilities. By using Section 14(c), the labor cost for these companies is significantly lower than comparable private companies who pay “regular rates” for labor.

I keep talking about AbilityOne and their non-profits and it seems kind of large and amorphous. To bring this down to reality and to an entity you might be familiar with – Goodwill Industries. Goodwill, you know, where you donate all your old clothes and children’s outgrown toys…they are an AbilityOne non-profit.

So now, let me get to the nitty-gritty details of the issue...and a third piece of legislation. The Workforce Innovation and Opportunities Act (WIOA), was signed into law in 2014. I won’t drown you in all the details but let me highlight a couple of “biggies.” WIOA updates the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The part we are specifically interested in is where it oversees the vocational rehabilitation system which helps people with disabilities get the support and tra...