The newly appointed director of a fledgling D.C. government agency charged with ensuring the District’s compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act has a mountain of work ahead of her, members of the disabled activist community said Wednesday.
Mayor Adrian Fenty named Eve Hill, a former disability-rights lawyer with the U.S. Department of Justice, as the first director of the new Office of Disability Rights. Hill most recently served as executive director of the Los Angeles-based Disability Rights Legal Center.
“I believe the District is clearly committed to an integrated workforce that includes people with disabilities,” Hill said during a news conference.
It’s a commitment to the roughly 114,000 District residents claiming a disability that is much easier said than done, observers said.
“It’s going slow,” said Bobby Coward, a D.C. resident and disabled activist who uses a wheelchair. “The restructuring process for full inclusion and integration is very slow.”
Coward, in conjunction with the Equal Rights Center, sued the District in January over accessibility issues at the Wilson Building — where the main wheelchair-accessible entrance is locked — among other government facilities. The complaint alleges that the city has denied persons with disabilities access to and use of its buildings in violation of the ADA and other laws.
The disabled face widespread physical and attitudinal barriers, from the inability to open bathroom doors at city hall to the lack of interpretive services for the deaf and an often underwhelming police reaction to their needs, said T.J. Sutcliffe, director of advocacy and public policy with The Arc of DC. Amber Harding with the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless said the absence of accessibility at shelters remains a “visible and urgent issue.”
Fenty acknowledged the “entire city is probably substandard” with regard to ADA compliance, from government buildings to Chinese food restaurants.
“We don’t think that there’s any part of the District of Columbia, public or private, that should be immune or exempted from [Hill’s] office,” Fenty said.
