Community Organizing

Yesterday, May 5th, 2009, advocacy groups, advocates, and agencies serving persons with disabilities packed Worcester City Hall to attend a City Council meeting to have their voices heard. The City of Worcester has eliminated two positions in the Office of Disabilities due to budget cuts and have merged their services with the Office of Human Rights. Advocates are outraged as this office has no staff person trained on disability issues to service their complaints and their issues under the American with Disabilities Act(ADA).

One of the City Councilors called on the City to seriously consider their decision to eliminate the operations of the Office on Disabilities and to think about how the needs of Disability Community will be met under the Office on Human Rights. Only one advocate was allowed to speak on this issue due to a heavy plate of agenda items that the Council had to finish before another meeting took place afterwards. The advocate spoke with disgust on how the City did not notify the above parties that the Office on Disabilities would be eliminated. The advocate felt that the City could have done a better job in communicating their intentions to close this office and to ask for feedback from the community on how the disability community's needs would be impacted.

To further add to advocates' frustration, The City Manager has not communicated with one disability agency to meet with them to discuss the above issues including who will serve as the ADA Coordinator for the City of Worcester.

As a member of a disability advocacy group who attended yesterday's meeting, I emailed all the City Councilors a few weeks ago to ask them to return the clerk who was laid off to work with the Office of Human Rights in an expert capacity on ADA issues for the disability community. Unfortunately, the City did not reinstate this clerk's position to this office.

The advocates, disability agencies and advocacy groups have to continue to strategize to have their voices heard. I will keep you posted as we move along.

Robbin Miller, LMHC
Facilitator