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November 02, 2005
Making strides in running, and life
...And Bryant was calm on a recent evening, jogging around the Central Park reservoir, as he does every Tuesday, with about 25 other runners who participate in a program for recovering substance abusers called "Skills for Positive Change."
The concept behind the program is simple: Running becomes a metaphor for life.
"Skills for Positive Change" is run jointly by Odyssey House, a live-in drug rehab center with three main residences in New York City, and the Achilles Track Club, a nonprofit organization that creates programs for disabled runners.
November is National Home Care Month
Nearly 400,000 disabled, frail or elderly New Yorkers are able to remain at home, avoiding placement in a nursing home or other institutional care setting, thanks to the highly-trained corps of home care professional and para-professional workers throughout New York State. November is National Home Care Month, and the Home Care Association of New York State would like to honor these valued home care workers that make staying at home possible. What home care workers do makes a difference.
Margaret ready to take on Big Apple
The Loftus Athletics Club athlete is travelling to America on Friday to take part in the New York City Marathon in aid of Get Kids Going, a charity that helps promote sports for disabled children by providing them with specially-built sports wheelchairs.
November 03, 2005
Casting Tradition to the Wind: Disability and Theatre in the 21st Century
The theatre plays a vital role in democracy, serving as a testing ground for society's most sacred beliefs, mores, and aspirations. Ideas about disability have been "tested" on audiences since Sophocles. Yet disability, as currently represented in character, theme, and metaphor, seems, to those who live it, absurdly out of date and narrowly conceived.
It is time to take stock of the representations. It is time to reimagine casting decisions. It is time for disabled people to be let out of the closet and onto the stage, backstage, theatre offices and Board rooms. Our goal is not merely to increase the participation of people with disabilities in theatre, but to upset the very structures and ways of thinking that have excluded them in the first place. Join us in a discussion about innovative strategies to integrate the theatre curriculum and ways to make the theatrical process more inclusive of disabled people.
Lecture is free and open to the public. ASL Interpreters will be present. Buffet dinner (optional) after seminar ($19). RSVP for event and/or dinner by November 7, 2005. Space is limited; RSVP does not guarantee a place. Please RSVP to dsseminar@gmail.com
Tuesday, November 15, 2005 4:00-6:00 pm
Location: Alfred Lerner Hall, Broadway Room, 3rd floor.
Enter the Columbia Campus at 115th Street and Broadway, follow path to building entrance on right.
Disabled in New York City; Also: Is The City Still Booming?
It is the objective of those who provide services and aid to the disabled to make it easier for them to live a full life. For this reason, providing disabled New Yorkers with transportation becomes very important. Though bus-riders in wheelchairs have become a common sight, there is no other mode of transportation in the city that is as accommodating; as a result, too many disabled New Yorkers feel as if they are trapped in their homes.
Disability doesn't deter local athlete
After all, to say Chris Lynch "overcame the odds" doesn't do justice to what he has accomplished since his injury. His success is one of the reasons Cheryl--5 years later--still was swollen with emotion, most of it pride-filled, as she watched her son train for, of all things, a marathon.
And not just any marathon: He's going to the famed New York City Marathon, which takes place Monday. He qualified for the event after completing the half-marathon portion of the Pensacola Marathon six months ago--his first major physical feat since his injury--in less than 1 hour and 15 minutes. He did so not by running but with a handcycle, a relatively new race division that requires the use of a bike propelled by one's arms rather than the legs.
November 04, 2005
Complex name hails 9/11 hero
The Costello Independent Living Complex, approved in June 2004, is slated for a secluded area adjacent to Maher Manor and Raritan Bay Medical Center's Old Bridge Division. The Costello complex and Maher Manor will be connected by a driveway.
...The complex is named after Charles "Chuck" Costello, an Old Bridge resident who died in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack in New York City.
Costello was an employee at a Cranford-based elevator company. He and a co-worker were driving in Lower Manhattan that day, when he decided to run to the World Trade Center site in hopes of rescuing people trapped in elevators, according to family members.
November 05, 2005
'Your leg or your life', so Todd gives life his best shot
The surgeon had other news for Philpott. His right leg, jammed between the bike and bus, would have to come off. There was no debate; the choice was simple--life or leg. The surgeon went to work. For many people, the story might end there and it would still be an epic tale. But for Todd Philpott, the journey had not reached the starting line. Philpott celebrates his 48th birthday in Manhattan today defending his New York Marathon title. It's the fifth year he has taken part in the world's most prestigious road race outside the Olympics.
November 06, 2005
Minibus Driver Leaves Chaos in His Wake
A minivan school bus carrying four preschoolers and a matron and driven at high speed by a man wanted on a drug charge veered into the wrong lane on a Brooklyn street yesterday and plowed into parked cars, a traffic light, a concrete pillar and a marble-and-iron fence, the police said.
No one was seriously injured in the lurching, 150-foot skein along Church Avenue near Stratford Road in Prospect Park South at 8:10 a.m., although witnesses said the passengers--two boys and two girls under 5 and an escort on their way to a school for disabled children--were severely shaken.
The Saint of Staten Island: Coping with her own loss, Elissa Montanti found a cause worth her passion: helping war-wounded kids
Since 1996 Montanti, 49, has helped 45 children, most of whom have lost limbs in war zones, by personally arranging visas and shepherding them to the U.S., where she hosts them in a three-bedroom Staten Island facility provided by New York City's Catholic archdiocese. With help from one part-time volunteer, she arranges for free surgery, treatment and prostheses (paid for by the Shriners). Montanti's nonprofit group, Global Medical Relief Fund (GMRF), subsists on donations from the Richmond County Savings Foundation and others who know her work. Her reputation for saving kids eclipses a shoestring annual budget of $150,000. "Elissa has helped every child I've asked her to help," says Maj. Glenn Rubalcava of the U.S. Military's Humanitarian Operations Center, which deals with Iraq's civilian casualties. "She always has a game plan."
Keeping an eye on aides' backgrounds
"There needs to be a central reporting system on the state level where the consumer can get information about these paraprofessionals," said Dennis L. Kodner, executive director of Hunter College's Brookdale Center on Aging in Manhattan.
"The same model that applies to physicians and nurses should apply to home health aides," Kodner said.
The state Department of Public Health introduced reforms on April 1, requiring criminal background checks and fingerprinting of all newly hired aides. Those already working were, in many cases, exempted.
The public health department's listing of "findings and convictions" for home health aides, which lists about 1,000 aides with criminal convictions, has not been updated since Dec. 5, 2002. Even after the reforms, the state agency's oversight is considered by many to be incomplete and inefficient, said Vivian Torres Suarez, director of the nonprofit Selfhelp Community Services Inc. of Manhattan, which employs more than 400 home health aides.
November 07, 2005
Polls Show NYC Mayor Crushing Underdog
"I'm feeling good," Bloomberg said, "it's been a long campaign and I'm looking forward to tomorrow."[Am I the only person who feels slightly dismayed at the thought of special shuttle services just for voting? If New York City's transit system worked for people with disabilities--if cabs and subways were accessible, buses all had working lifts, and Access-a-Ride worked properly--perhaps shuttles wouldn't be necessary. -Editor]His resource-rich campaign has even set up a hot line and shuttle service to cart voters to their polling places if they are elderly or disabled and need transportation. The shuttle service is just one part of his campaign's relentless get-out-the-vote machine, which has already reached millions of people by knocking on doors and writing letters.
'I thought I was going to die on that bus'
The Brooklyn bus matron who survived a nightmare ride with an allegedly drugged-up driver and four autistic children described a scene of terror that she never thought she'd escape alive.
After a Bumpy Challenge, a Road Record and Sore Arms
[Ernst] Van Dyk, a 32-year-old South African, won the men's wheelchair race in 1 hour 31 minutes 11 seconds, a course record. He set the world record of 1:18:27 last year over the Boston Marathon's largely downhill course. He has won in Boston the last five years; this year he raced in five marathons and won them all.
This was his second marathon victory in eight days. Last Sunday he won in a field of 300 in Oita, Japan, then flew to South Africa to pick up his wife, then flew here Wednesday.
[Edith] Hunkeler, a 33-year-old Swiss, won the women's race in 1:54:52. Last year she set the course record of 1:53:27.
November 08, 2005
"Tune-up" marathon becomes big moment for Shea
The last official finisher was 24-year-old Nihal Erkan of Turkey, one of the disabled athletes who started the race at 8 a.m. and finished 10 hours later.
November 09, 2005
Disabled win hearts at NYC Marathon
The New York City Marathon on Sunday featured 37,516 starters of all speeds, ages, sizes and abilities. In particular, the physically challenged runners seemed to capture the hearts of onlookers at Mile 16.
...Screams at Mile 16 were heard all day. But the loudest roars weren't for the fastest and strongest, but for the disadvantaged. Men and women elites passed by in packs and some lingered a bit behind, but all talk about them fell mute among the presence of these amazing disadvantaged athletes. The wheelchair racers came streaming down the avenue with graceful spins of their wheels. Handcycles passed intermittently with powerful pushes of their front pedals. Some were paralyzed, others were amputees.
Members of various Achilles' track clubs, organizations for runners with disabilities, passed all day sporting red T-shirts reading, "Go Achilles'." Many were assisted by runners wearing similar red T-shirts reading, "Achilles' Guide."
November 10, 2005
Wheelchair-Bound Pakistani Participates in New York City Marathon: Sarmad el Tariq makes history and raises awareness of earthquake victims
Even as countless spectators at the New York City Marathon November 6 shouted, "Go, Sarmad, go!" Sarmad el Tariq knew that it was not about him this time. When weary runners who already had finished the grueling 42-kilometer race came back down the course to call to him, "Go! You're my inspiration!" the 29-year-old athlete knew that he was battling for more than just himself.
At the moment he crossed the finish line in his specially made wheelchair after seven-and-a-half hours, he knew he had won a great victory by raising awareness for Pakistani victims of a massive earthquake that struck October 8.
Disabled Subway Riders Protest Busted Elevator At New Stillwell Station
Disabled subway riders want to know why it's taken so long for a new elevator to get installed at a Brooklyn train station.
They say the opening of a brand new elevator at the Stillwell Avenue station was delayed for months, making their commute more difficult.
The station recently underwent a $300 million renovation. New elevators were supposed to open in May but didn't start running until last month, with one of them in and out of service as late as Wednesday.
Because both the subway map and the MTA website indicate the station is accessible, some disabled riders have taken the D train all the way here, only to have to turn right back around because they had no way of getting off the platform.
November 11, 2005
City Announces Creation of 9,000 Housing Units for Homeless
The City and State of New York have come up with a $1 billion plan to finance and develop 9,000 new units of supportive housing in New York City. Supportive housing is subsidized permanent housing with social services for the homeless. The plan was announced by Governor George Pataki and Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Nov. 7.
...Whereas the first two agreements produced units solely for single adults with mental illness and some history of homelessness, the new pact targets a broader range of clients to better reflect the population of chronically homeless people on city streets and in shelters today. New York/New York III includes units for clients with substance abuse disorders, HIV/AIDS, and mental illness. Also included for the first time are families with disabled heads of households and young people aging out of foster care and residential treatment.
November 12, 2005
Teacher Says She Got Sick At Work: Claims Blood-To-Blood Contact Gave Her Liver Ailment Hepatitis C
Lori Baron says she loves the kids she works with, even the one that gave her a debilitating disease.
For the past 11 years, Baron has worked as a teacher's aide with emotionally disturbed and physically disabled children at Beach Channel High School in Queens.
...In the last two years, the teachers' union has received reports of 128 staff members who've had blood-to-blood contact with students. Under federal guidelines, teachers in these high-risk situations are supposed to receive training, protective gear like gloves and aprons and free hepatitis B vaccinations.
But recent inspections by the New York State Labor Department have found the city's plan to be lacking. Since 2004, the Department of Education has been slapped with 14 violations, and currently faces fines of more than $40,000.
"We do not understand why the board pays no attention to this but it is really putting its employees, and its students, in terrible danger," teachers' union president Randi Weingarten said.
November 13, 2005
Disabled man dies in Queens fire
A disabled man watching television at his uncle's Queens house died when a fast-moving blaze apparently sparked by a space heater tore through the home early yesterday.
November 17, 2005
Remain Calm
New York Magazine has an interesting article on New York City's emergency plans; no specific mention of what people with disabilities should do in an emergency, but important nonetheless. Everybody go find your reception center or evacuation route now.
Hospitals and nursing homes are not part of OEM's plan--they fall under state jurisdiction--and are essentially left to their own devices for evacuation. No one currently knows which facilities actually have plans or if they'd work. One city insider told me that after Katrina, Mayor Bloomberg put the state on notice about this, and the State Department of Health has now begun to step up to the plate.
Special Education Ruling's Effects Unclear
It may take years to assess fully the impact of the Supreme Court ruling on Monday on disputes between school districts and the parents of special education students, experts across the country have said.
The decision gives parents who disagree with the individualized education plans the burden of proving that the plans are inadequate.
November 18, 2005
6 will be honored at IAC holiday brunch
Michael Fortunato, Richard Salinardi, Dorothy Doran, George Fehling and Frank and Luz Captain will be honored at the Holiday Brunch of the Staten Island Inter-Agency Council for Aging (IAC) on Dec. 1 at 11 a.m. in the Crystal Room, South Beach.
The Yellow Taxi Goes Green
As an integral part of the public transportation system, taxis provide limited travel for both the disabled and those with children. With more than 12,000 cabs in New York only twelve are wheelchair-accessible. CityStreets, an advocacy group that fights for pedestrians' rights, developed the CABsule, which features sliding doors and a curbside ramp, facilitating entry and exit for the disabled, strollers, and anyone carrying large items.
November 20, 2005
A sledding adventure
The former New York City police officer, built like a guy who had multiple Division I scholarship offers, will put a blue Rangers shirt over his gear before he gets on the ice. The rest of his equipment has been adapted so that he can compete with one leg.
"It's a good way for disabled people to get out there," said Strezenec, who lives on Long Island. "There's nothing like hockey if you're aggressive."
November 21, 2005
UCP of New York City presents TechWorksExpo 2005
The goal is to provide a forum for participants to learn about the latest technology, practical applications, services and funding available to individuals with disabilities. To register, call 212-683-6700 ext. 226. Further information can be obtained at www.ucpnyc.org.
November 29-30, 2005
NY Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge
333 Adams St.
Brooklyn, NY
November 22, 2005
Seniors Seethe at Medifarce: Just who stands to gain? The insurance companies, for one
Part D was created when Congress voted the Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003 (MMA) into lumbering life. Ostensibly, it enabled seniors, the disabled and low-income people, to buy prescription drugs cheaply. Actually, it doesn’t cover that much, and Part D has essentially turned over what it does cover to private insurers.
A Warning to Applicants for Social Security Disability Benefits
The Social Security Administration has adopted a policy of taking unnecessary SSI Disability applications from every applicant for Social Security Disability Insurance benefits -- despite the fact that many applicants are clearly ineligible.
November 24, 2005
PJC Student Competes in New York City Marathon
On July 13, 2000, PJC student Chris Lynch fell 2 ½ stories during a combat training exercise in France with the U.S. 82nd Airborne division and suffered a massive brain injury. He lay in a coma for 45 days and doctors believed he would never talk or move again. Five years later, his impenetrable determination, contagious positive attitude and optimistic spirit led him to the finish line of the New York City Marathon.
November 25, 2005
Germ Fears at Second Brooklyn School
For the second time in as many weeks, state inspectors found workers at a public school for disabled kids were not being properly protected from dangerous blood-borne pathogens, like hepatitis, according to a state Labor Department official.
Ride Half-Price Into The New Year With MTA Holiday Bonus
The Metropolitan Transit Authority wants to bring a little holiday cheer to its seven million daily riders, with half fares, bonus days, and other specials from Thanksgiving Day through New Year's Day.
Starting with the four-day Thanksgiving weekend and for every weekend through the new year, riders will pay half fare on the subway and buses. This $1 per ride rate will also extend the entire week of Christmas, December 24th to January 1st.
All senior citizens and disabled citizens who already qualify for reduced rates will get an additional rate decrease. Reduced fares will be slashed to 50 cents per ride during the holiday weekends. Half rates also apply on Access-A-Ride.
November 29, 2005
Vote of No Confidence
New York's 2006 primary elections are only 10 months away, but it's still a mystery what machines the state's 11.6 million registered voters will use to cast their ballots that day. A federal law passed after the 2000 debacle in Florida requires that the state's old-fashioned lever machines be scrapped by New Year's, and failing that, by primary day. But a state law passed this summer demands only that disabled voters get new machines by next fall, and the rest of us by 2007.
November 30, 2005
Learning-Disabled Students Blossom in Blended Classes
This collaborative team teaching model--pairing a general ed and special ed teacher in a classroom that is up to 40 percent special ed children--is considered one of the best hopes for mainstreaming more handicapped children. In New York City, about 12,500 special ed students--nearly 10 per cent of the special ed population--now attend these classes.