"Questions about your ADA Accommodations are not ADA related questions."
Wow, that's a loaded starter for a post.
Hi, readers!
The premise:
Every quarter here in Florida's prison system, we who are rated for ADA are required to have a meeting with staff, regarding our ADA needs, and whether they are being met.
The Issue:
We incarcerated and disabled many try to get concerns heard, questions asked and answered, but we are all aware of what the meeting really is:
Sign this paper, shut up, and let us get paid extra for housing you even as we fail to address issues.
In momentary defense of Blessington, it's not Blessington's fault.
But, returning with additional fire: Blessington Is Complicit With Executing Bad Policy From FDC.
Our opportunity to speak:
We write inmate requests that disappear into the aether, accommodation requests that get denied, grievances that get flushed.
It's at these meetings that we disabled hope that someone remembers that we do not lose our right to dignified treatment simply because we're residents of the Florida Department of Corrections' statewide secure, limited access 'bed and breakfast' network.
Today's meeting clearly tells us otherwise. It says "Is your accommodation item itself broken? No? We're doing a great job; go back to your hole; it's count time somewhere."
It is apparently not the time to ask why your requests, plural, for ADA accommodation are disappearing into the garbage, never to be seen again.
It is apparently not time to ask what the facility's phone provider is doing to meet the legal obligation to make services available to hearing impaired inmates -- something we had to learn about from news sources other than here (with thanks to The Marshall Project's News Inside, Issue 14 from 2023).
It's likely not the time to ask why your wheelchair's tip bars are being held, or when that half inch dip on the walk will be leveled so that people with mobility devices or vision impairments can walk without trying to dodge something that could trip them, or how to get any accommodation necessary for a disabled person.
Because, after all, Questions about your ADA Accommodations are not ADA related questions.
What can you do about it?
As always, noise from the outside is more effective than noise from the inside. This is especially so if you are a constituent in the region that you're making noise in. Push the issue with your legislation, no matter where you are, when you hear stories like this. Laying silent means abuses, violations, and other harms continue until too many people get hurt.
For people from outside that region, it still can bear fruit to speak out, reminding the folks that live there that hey, quit just laying there and actually speak out against unrighteous behaviors.
It's 2024. Let's put out the dumpster fires, shall we?
N.B.: The facility name is changed to obscure and protect Jayel's identity.