Disability Justice

 COVID-19 Recovery

The COVID pandemic exacerbated the challenges faced by the over 1 million people with disabilities in New York City, who had already struggled with 14% unemployment rates. The poverty rate of working-age New Yorkers age 21 to 64 with a disability was 30.1% 2015, versus 11% for those without disabilities. 

As our city recovers from the pandemic, we need a plan to ensure that those with disabilities aren’t left behind. As your Mayor I will:

• Stop the eviction crisis: see my Housing plan HERE. 

• Provide financial and technical assistance to landlords for ADA compliance.

• My Reboot City Hall policy plans for the use of technology to build an online, user-friendly, city-wide directory of affordable housing. We will also create a citywide directory of employment opportunities for disabled, and automate the process of signing up for benefits like SNAP, WIC, and EBT. 

• Execute a comprehensive plan for food security for all New Yorkers: see my full Food Insecurity policy HERE.

Children with Disabilities

We must ensure disabled children are supported, starting with early childhood. My cornerstone policy as Mayor is providing free Universal Childcare (read the full plan HERE), in every neighborhood, including ensuring that disabled children have their needs met in these facilities.

Additionally, we must provide quality education for students with disabilities and learning differences:

• Education that meets students where they are. See my full Education plan HERE. Notably, as a part of this plan, I will:

  • Expand the number of District 75 schools in each borough, to ensure fully-funded education to students with special needs.

  • Institute an option to keep digital school around for those kids who learn better from home. This could be especially helpful for students with certain disabilities. 

  • Successfully educating special needs students requires the successful integration of multiple city agencies: education, housing, health, probation, and more. These students are often failed by poor coordination within the City government. I will invest heavily in integrated government services to keep these students from falling through the cracks.

  • Expand CUNY to support lifelong learning and workforce development, and make CUNY tuition-free.

• Universal broadband, including accessible Internet-connected devices for every student in NYC. See my full Digital Bill of Rights HERE.

• User-friendly online system to manage student IEPs. 

• Reliable, carbon-free transportation to and from school.

• ADA-compliant access to all school facilities.

Streets & Transportation

Upgrade Open Spaces and Streets with Disability Justice at the Forefront

One of the main accessibility problems in NYC is the outdated sidewalk infrastructure. Despite clear goals within the Americans with Disabilities Act and several litigations and class-action lawsuits, the City is still very behind on modernizing its sidewalks to be compliant with any disability standards. Many Disabled New Yorkers complain about uneven curb ramps and narrow sidewalk paths and scaffolding. It’s estimated that over half a million residents have difficulty getting around for their daily commutes.

After the DOT spent $1.55 billion to survey sidewalks in 2019, there has been little work done to fix the ongoing problems. A glaring issue with New York’s sidewalk systems is the lack of data and sporadic survey schedule. The only planned survey system for the city will be in 2033 and 2046, due to requirements put forth by a previous settlement. This lack of consistent, year-to-year data is something that causes problems to fester until they result in further problems for the disabled community.

Why is it so difficult to get these much-needed preparations underway? There was a lawsuit filed in 1994 to ensure these curbs are made ADA-compliant. In 2002, then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg promised to have the curbs repaired and compliant by 2010. We’re still waiting over a decade later. This is because the previous administrations lacked data and the plans lacked structure. There was an annual agreement for how much the project would cost, but there was no structure after the budget was sorted. Without a plan for compliance, curb cutting, or curb repairs, the work was vastly inefficient. I have a plan for this and a new, modern City Hall will give us the data we need to move forward with this.

In order to ensure our streets go beyond just the standard, an annual survey of the streets must be done. By categorizing curb areas as “Safe Streets”, we can set a criteria for how well and how accessible each sidewalk is, and through this we are creating consistent data in order to fix problems as they come, instead of waiting until it becomes a bigger issue. 

Transportation Equity

About 160,000 people with disabilities use the Access-A-Ride service to get around the city for their commute. The service costs several times more than an average taxi ride, about $86 per ride, but at a fraction of the reliability. Access-A-Ride wait periods are unnecessarily long, which causes riders to miss appointments or be late to work and obligations. Sometimes the rides never come. Requesting a ride must be made in advance the day before, which is too much of a hassle for the fast-paced life New Yorkers lead.

As a tech Mayor, the new Administration will work to include Access-A-Ride in the modernization process, creating a tech-centered and user-friendly experience for disabled residents. 

In addition to greater specialized transportation, our public transit is long overdue for being accessible. Only 25 percent of subway stations in NYC are wheelchair accessible, one of the lowest in any major transit system in the world. Even then, our currently-accessible MTA stations are in desperate need of repair and renovation. In 2015, there were 14,092 elevator outages. Every year, each subway elevator will break down or go out of order 53 times. For New Yorkers with disabilities, that will mean they have to take a detour 53 times a year. On the R line, only 1 of the 11 stations in Downtown Brooklyn is wheelchair accessible.

The greatest obstacle to installing or repairing accessibility options for the MTA is priorities. When the MTA gets new funding, it rarely goes toward new elevators or accessibility options. 

A city that is easy to navigate for the disabled will be better for everyone. As Mayor, I’ll launch a citywide plan designed with accessibility at the heart, including:

• Deputy Mayor for the Public Realm, to oversee open spaces, including streets and transportation access

• Expansion of the city’s bus network, especially in the far areas of the city that have poor subway and bus accessibility

• Pilot program modeled after London’s flexible buses to have a vastly more responsive upgrade to Access-a-ride

  • Create a new website and app for users to reserve rides on a shorter notice 

• ADA-compliant access to all public facilities, including transportation and voting

As Mayor, I also commit to ensuring all information that leaves my office is accessible to all, by having accessible websites, distribution of information in Braille, ASL interpretation at all speaking events, and captioning. 

Accessibility Throughout the City

Improve accessibility in private businesses, especially small businesses

• To support small businesses recovering from COVID while also supporting folks with disabilities, we must ensure funding and technical assistance to small businesses for ADA compliance.

Increase access to arts and culture:

• Include a disability identification on NYC ID cards.

• Allow free entry/pay as you wish for all disabled visitors (and one caregiver for free) to all city-controlled cultural institutions.

• Allow discounted entry, plus discounted memberships (at the lowest price point available) for all disabled visitors (and one caregiver for free) to private cultural institutions and businesses, not controlled by the city, that currently offer such discounts to seniors, students and veterans.

Advocate for the specific needs of the disabled that require State-level budgeting and legislation

As Mayor, I’ll advocate for the disabled residents of NYC with State legislators, including:

• Raising the cap on earnings that forces people with disabilities to choose between financial independence and proper care.

• Integrating the NYSOH marketplace to include all forms of coverage and enroll people in the most beneficial program based on individual needs.

• Overriding the arbitrary 20-limit visit on medicaid services like occupational, physical and speech therapy.

• Ensuring that caregivers are covered by health insurance.

• Making alternative/natural/non-Western medicine more easily accessible, such as medical marijuana, acupuncture, chiropractic, and other therapies.

A Framework for Success

We can make NYC the most accessible city in the world, and as a Mayor focused on transparent data, my City Hall will concentrate its efforts on the criteria that The Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation uses to rank how wheelchair accessible a city is. These criteria are as follows:

• Climate

  • Annual snowfall, extreme temperatures, and how well the City can provide aid during harsh weather

• Air Quality

• Number of physicians present to address the needs of disabled individuals

• Number of Rehab Centers

• Number of Rehab Specialists

• Wheelchair Accessible Transit and ADA compliant public spaces

• Number of Disabled Living in the Area, and Their Employment Rate

• Medicaid Availability

By collecting accurate data on the above, we can properly evaluate our city’s accessibility and pinpoint areas that need improvement.