Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 23, 1992 TAG: 9202240184
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
`INDEPENDENCE GIVES MEANING'
An estimated one in five Americans has some form of physical or mental disability. Roanoke's Center for Independence for the Disabled is trying to help some of those people lead easier, more fulfilling lives.
An hour or so before George Sanderson was named Roanoke's 1991 Citizen of the Year, he found his way into a restaurant blocked by a car parked in front of a poorly marked wheelchair ramp.
Two busboys had to help Sanderson, who is chairman of the Center for Independence for the Disabled, get his wheelchair up a steep curb.
Sanderson and the CID's executive director, Karen Michalski, talked to the restaurant manager. The manager, embarrassed, apologized for the poor marking on the handicapped ramp - and promised to do something about it.
The CID, at 1502-D Williamson Road NE, has been working since 1989 to educate the public about the rights of the disabled and to help people with physical or mental disabilities lead fuller lives.
The CID and the Mayor's Committee for the Disabled successfully fought to increase, from $5 to $50, Roanoke's fine for parking illegally in handicapped parking spaces. The CID also has worked for expanded bus service and housing choices for people with disabilities.
But the center aims beyond traditional access issues. "No sense teaching a person to get off a bus if there's no place to go once they get off," Michalski said.
Along with pushing for social change in a public way, the CID helps people with disabilities overcome personal obstacles.
These obstacles may be as basic as not being able to find an apartment where they can get in and out, or as difficult as dealing with the psychological strains of living with a disability.
The center's counseling programs include a grief support group. People with disabilities often grieve over their losses - of mobility, independence or skills - in much the same way as people who have lost loved ones.
Counseling and advocacy go together. The CID helps people learn to be advocates, both by giving them information about issues and by boosting their confidence.
"A little independence gives people a real sense of meaning," Sanderson said. "Too many disabled people have been pushed into a back room and ignored."
Michalski, the CID's director, said people often come to the center unsure of themselves. But most get over that.
In fact, CID participants' first advocacy campaign was directed at the center.
A group of participants came and demanded the right to smoke within the center's offices, Michalski remembers. They had been quiet and subdued when they had started coming to the center, she said. "The next thing I know, here I've got all these radicals: `We want a smoking section.' "
Sanderson, whose legs were amputated 12 years ago because of a circulatory disorder, won the Citizen of the Year Award for his non-stop volunteer work at the CID and other programs for the handicapped.
As for the problem at the restaurant last month, he said, "I'm used to it. But it still gets a little degrading to have to be lifted up and carried. There's still some work to be done in that area."
Sanderson, one of founders of the CID, said the center "has given us a new direction. It's given us a sense of confidence.
"The pity of it at the moment is we're really not in a position to expand because of the funding."
The center has spent so much of its energy helping people who need help that it has not had a chance to do much fund raising, he said. If people would make contributions, he said, the center would be able to do even more to educate the public.
The CID fields calls from businesses that have questions about how to comply with laws requiring them to provide access to the disabled. The Americans with Disabilities Act - a far-reaching set of laws that is being phased in over the next three years - has sparked a flurry of calls to the center.
The center also helped Jefferson National Forest build a nature trail that was accessible to the handicapped. The trail even allows people to fish for trout from wheelchairs.
CID\ AT A GLANCE\ Telephone: 342-1231 or 342-1939 (TDD for people with hearing disabilities).\ Address: 1502 D Williamson Road N.E., Roanoke 24012.\ Services: advocacy, counseling and support for people with disabilities.\ Number of people served (from August 1989 through June 1991): 138.\ Affiliation: Private, not-for-profit agency. Under its bylaws, at least 51 percent of its board of directors must be people with disabilities.\ Budget: $153,000 a year.\ Source of money: a contract with the state of Virginia.\ Number of employees: Six (five full-time and one part-time).