Michigan Disability Resistance

Today’s episode is on disabled people in public service. Maria Town, Director of the Mayor’s Office on People with Disabilities for the City of Houston and Walei Sabry, Housing Coordinator for the New York City Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities and Digital Accessibility Coordinator for the NYC Department of Information Technology and Telecommunication join Alice for a conversation on the importance of public service.

Maria and Walei share how they became involved in public service and what it means to them, what MOPDs do, and the major issues facing disability communities in Houston and NYC.

Transcript

The House Republican tax bill increases the maximum child tax credit (CTC) to $1,600, from its current $1,000 per-child level.  The proposal, however, excludes millions of children whose parents work in low-wage jobs — even as it expands eligibility for higher-income families.  Since low-wage earning parents and their children are the people with the greatest need for the CTC, excluding them from the CTC expansion — especially while extending the CTC for the first time to many families with incomes between $150,000 and $300,000 — represents unsound policy.

Congress and President Clinton created the CTC in 1997; it has since been modified several times on a bipartisan basis.  Currently, the maximum per-child credit is $1,000, and the credit is available only to parents who work and earn income within certain ranges.  The CTC is partially refundable, meaning that it is partly, but not entirely, available to families with earnings too low to owe federal income tax. Specifically, the refundable portion of the CTC is limited to 15 percent of a family’s earnings over $3,000. At the upper end, the CTC begins to phase out (at a rate of 5 cents per additional dollar of income) for married couples making over $110,000.  It phases out entirely for a married family with two children when the family’s income reaches $150,000.

Researchers also found that many LGBTQI+* disabled people who recruit their own PAs had not come out to their personal assistants because they feared discrimination.

The research, co-produced by the LGBTQI+ disabled people’s organisation Regard, included a survey of more than 50 LGBTQI+ disabled people in England who control their own support packages, as well as 20 in-depth interviews.

More than half of those surveyed said they never or only sometimes disclosed their sexual orientation or gender identity to their PAs.

Almost a third said they felt they had been discriminated against by their local authority on the grounds of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

And more than 90 per cent said their needs as an LGBTQI+ disabled person were either not considered or were only given some consideration, when they were assessed or reviewed by their local authority.

Autistic people have the right to be safe and live independently in our communities. We also face significant threats to our safety, including higher rates of abuse, institutionalization, suicide, and police violence. Too often, autistic voices have been erased from conversations about autism and safety. That’s why ASAN is proud to announce the release of our Autism & Safety Toolkit – the first toolkit made by autistic self-advocates, focusing on safety issues that affect us and the tools to deal with them.

This toolkit provides information about:

• Abuse and neglect
• Bullying
• Interactions with police
• Mental health
• Safely navigating the community

Many people think that people with developmental disabilities must give up our autonomy, or be separated from the broader community, in order to be safe. But in reality, we are safest when we are included in our communities and empowered to take control of our own lives. The toolkit describes safety risks we face, discusses different ways to address them, and debunks myths about safety that are sometimes used to curtail our independence and access to the community.