disability
The Architecture of Disability: Buildings, Cities, and Landscapes beyond Access – review
In The Architecture of Disability: Buildings, Cities, and Landscapes beyond Access, David Gissen contends that the focus on access in design around disability perpetuates inequalities, arguing instead for centralising disabled people in architectural and urban planning. Amy Batley finds that the book’s attempts to reframe disability in contemporary urban landscapes are overpowered by historical tangents and subjective claims.
While the gendered and racialised inequalities of urban design have become prominent avenues of academic debate, the limited consideration of the needs of disabled people within planning for the public sphere continues to undermine calls for more egalitarian urban design. In The Architecture of Disability, David Gissen pursues this matter, arguing that the overwhelming focus on access when designing cities continues to perpetuate inequalities for people with disabilities in using urban spaces, landscapes and buildings. For Gissen, the architectural emphasis on access is insufficient. In response to this, he calls for a more critical understanding of how disability is experienced in the urban realm, and for those with disabilities to be centralised in architectural and urban design, rather than exteriorised.
For Gissen, the existing architectural emphasis on creating urban spaces which are accessible for those with disabilities is “an incomplete response” which serves to “reinforce entrenched definitions of disability” (ix) by “view[ing] impairments as physical and mental aberrations and burdens to overcome” (xv). Rather than interpreting disability as an aberration for which compensations need to be made, Gissen calls for the creation of an architecture which coexists with disability.
Rather than interpreting disability as an aberration for which compensations need to be made, Gissen calls for the creation of an architecture which coexists with disability.
Gissen’s historical analysis is extensive and detailed, centralising historical examples of urban engagement with disability within the text. The author draws parallels between seemingly disparate historical examples, such as Athens’ Acropolis and Saint Denis’ Basilica, to argue that, in their current form, any reference to historical disability assistance at these two monuments has been minimised. For example, Gissen cites archaeological research which showed that, in Ancient Greece, the Acropolis featured ramps and the area was used by the elderly using canes and crutches. Gissen uses this second-hand historical context to claim that in the case of this monument, the space “might have been more relatable to its impaired visitors in the past than it is in its present-day condition” (9). This historical analysis is similarly strong in a later chapter, where Gissen’s discussion of 19th-century urbanism in Paris presents a refreshing read beyond the dominant urbanist tendency to blame many of contemporary Paris’ successes and ills on Baron Haussmann’s overhaul of the city’ urban planning.
Gissen cites archaeological research which showed that, in Ancient Greece, the Acropolis featured ramps and the area was used by the elderly using canes and crutches
Gissen also provides an additional new perspective from which to consider monumentality beyond existing urban analyses of their political manipulation for nation-building purposes. The author argues that present-day efforts to preserve the historic reference to the vulnerabilities of previous users at monumental sites exposes how contemporary monument management has “sublimated weakness and vulnerability as cultural values” (11) towards an idealised vision of the nation.
Though providing the reader with new perspectives from which to consider the role of disability in contemporary urban landscapes, the book’s central premise – of moving the consideration of disability in the city beyond questions of access – frequently becomes lost amid historical tangents whose relevance to the argument is not always made explicit. For example, Gissen continues his critique of monumentality in contemporary cities, but rather than tying the matter of monumentality to disability, Gissen loses focus and begins to question the role of Confederate and colonial monuments in the context of Black Lives Matter protests. The calls from those protestors deserve thorough consideration and academic debate, but the relevance to a discussion about the architecture of disability is not clarified. This reflects a broader structural problem with the book. Though the architectural and urban connections are intermittently addressed throughout the chapters, these relationships are not always clear, which leaves the reader to try to connect the dots.
Though the architectural and urban connections are intermittently addressed throughout the chapters, these relationships are not always clear, which leaves the reader to try to connect the dots.
Several of the book’s claims will likely frustrate fellow urbanists. This largely stems from the minimal referencing and portrayal of subjective statements as objective facts. For example, in discussing how the rationalisation of European and American cities has made them “some of the most inaccessible places” (53), Gissen takes issue with how the apparent “immensity and exposed quality of the boulevard make walking intimidating” (ibid.). Here, Giddens’ lack of reference to Haussmann’s renovations of Paris, which had been undertaken to enable better vision and military access to quash revolutionary fervour in the 18th-century city, seems to deliberately obfuscate a widely accepted understanding among urbanists. Gidden’s claim that boulevards are intimidating directly contradicts the general urban consensus that, in the right conditions, the surveillance – so-called “eyes on the street”– enabled by urban exposure can create feelings of security and, thus, implies a poor engagement with broader urban theory. Moreover, this argument that open urban spaces can intimidate and deter users is presented at a time when the architectural opening of urban spaces for security purposes has become preferable to hard-engineering measures and the militarisation of urban landscapes, which suggests that the author is choosing not to engage with some of the emerging urban challenges to which his thesis relates.
The book’s aspirations are admirable, presenting a much-needed consideration of the role of disability in contemporary cities. Unfortunately, the book’s historical tangents obscure its central argument while also revealing the author’s nostalgic vision for an urban life more reminiscent of Ancient Greece than one which can engage with the myriad of contemporary challenges faced by disabled people moving through and making lives in cities.
Note: This post gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Image: XArtProduction on Shutterstock.
Inside the UK’s First Open-Access, Pay-As-You-Go Factory
Entrepreneurs Alisha Fredriksson and Roujia Wen spent months in 2022 scouring London for the right space to develop a prototype. Their big idea — to capture carbon emissions from cargo ships by trapping the gas amongst calcium oxide pebbles, through a system fitted on board — required a big, well-equipped space.
The options their search yielded were less than appealing. Large warehouses that had the high ceilings Fredriksson and Wen needed to build their venture, Seabound, were typically empty, with tenants needing to fully equip it themselves with the right machinery, plus the electricity to power it. They tended to be in industrial zones with only the likes of auto shops or dark kitchens for neighbors, and they usually required signing a five-year lease.
Seabound co-founders Alisha Fredriksson and Roujia Wen. Courtesy of Seabound
“As a six-month-old startup at the time, it was a scary proposition,” Fredriksson recalls.
Then Seabound found BLOQS, a 32,000-square-foot converted warehouse in the north London suburb of Enfield, fully kitted out with £1.3 million (around $1.7 million) worth of light industrial equipment for all kinds of manufacturing, including wood processing and metal fabrication, laser cutting and engraving, 3D printing, sewing machines, spray painting and more. If that didn’t already make the case for moving in, the flexible membership structure then quickly sealed the deal for Fredriksson and Wen.
The initial sign-up is free, with members simply paying a daily rate for the machinery they need to use, as well as for flexible office and storage space if they need it. Raw materials are available to purchase too, price-matched with local suppliers. And if members need to learn to use a particular piece of equipment, they can pay for training. An added bonus is the on-site restaurant, where an award-winning chef serves a seasonable and affordable Mediterranean menu. Yet the biggest draw for the Seabound team was the community of 1,000 other like-minded members.
Credit: Claudia Agati
“We wanted people to not just make whatever it is that they needed to, but we wanted to provide a facility where somebody was able to do what it is that the world needs,” says BLOQS cofounder Al Parra.
“It’s a fun place to go to work every day. We have a whole ecosystem of people that we’re a part of. Whereas if we were in our own warehouse on some industrial site, I don’t think we would have friends there — it would be more lonely,” says Fredriksson.
The expertise available at BLOQS has also allowed Seabound to tap into support on an as-needed basis. “We’ve actually also been able to keep our team very lean, because we’ve been able to occasionally work with people at BLOQS as a kind of ‘surge support,’” Fredriksson says. “For instance, there are technicians at BLOQS that have helped us, and there are electricians who are members that we’ve been able to contract with. So we have flexibility in terms of space and resourcing.”
The Seabound co-founders tested their prototype on board an 800-foot commercial container ship in late 2023. Courtesy of Seabound
Seabound was able to leverage everything on offer at BLOQS to test its carbon capture technology, with the team spending two months in late 2023 on board an 800-foot commercial container ship. The Seabound prototype successfully captured around one metric ton of CO2 per day, meaning the team, now back on dry land at BLOQS, can move into their second phase of research, development and testing, aiming to deploy their next system onto a ship in 2025.
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BLOQS co-founder Al Parra feels Seabound is one of the best examples of why he and his partners set up the space, which he describes as having “its own dynamism,” to drive innovation. “What this women-led climate tech engineering group is doing is incredible,” says Parra. “They started at BLOQS because they couldn’t take on the risk of their own premises. That very often is the case, that people come to us because they have a physical need of something that we provide, but then they stay because of the community. They’re in this confluence and mix of abilities, skills and knowledge. If you don’t know how to do something, you can be damn sure you’re one handshake away from somebody who does.”
As the UK’s largest open-access professional maker space — and the country’s first pay-as-you-go space of its kind — BLOQS has created 380 full-time jobs and has turned over a collective £15 million a year (around $19.1 million) since it launched in 2012. (It was then in a different location and moved to Enfield in 2022.)
Al Parra is BLOQS’ co-founder and director. Courtesy of BLOQS
As an open-access maker space in London, BLOQS isn’t alone. Thirty-eight maker spaces in the UK capital are listed on the Open Workshop Network, while 3D printing support organization CREATE Education lists community-centric spaces across the country on its site. Discipline-specific workshops also exist for professionals. But where BLOQS is unique, argues Parra, is that it’s the only cross-discipline site out of which someone could run a business.
“We wanted people to not just make whatever it is that they needed to, but we wanted to provide a facility where somebody was able to do what it is that the world needs,” says Parra.
Parra has observed that BLOQS members are able to leapfrog the initial set-up period of building up manufacturing contacts, which can take up to 10 years.
“We simplify access to things which are really expensive. If you don’t come from a privileged background, it’s difficult to get together that money. At BLOQS, you can walk straight in, from something like a building site, from a course or degree, or you can transition from another career, and we’ve got all of the resources,” says Parra.
“By making all of the technology that we’ve got available and affordable, we are diminishing the barriers between that and the creative mind.”
The DEMAND team at work. Courtesy of DEMAND
Some entrepreneurs see BLOQS as a testing ground for new ideas and stepping stone to a more permanent, private premises, while others see fit to call it their home for the foreseeable. Seabound’s future, for example, looks promising enough that Fredriksson is already forecasting a need for a larger separate space to accommodate dedicated facilities as well as manufacturing partners, although research and development, she thinks, could still be done at BLOQS.
The charity DEMAND, meanwhile, which creates assistive products for people with disabilities, has made its journey to BLOQS in reverse. After having spent the previous 20 years operating out of its own factory just north of London, the team migrated to BLOQS in 2022 after deciding its impact could be greater working in a shared space. Spending time and money on building and machine maintenance was holding the organization back, and with no other similar outfit nearby, the team felt isolated.
“The combination of flexible space and industrial-grade machinery has had a lot of impact on our speed and efficiency. And having access to the community makes it feel like we’re in a much bigger organization — we can lean on, and be inspired by, other people,” says Lynnette Smith, DEMAND’s head of creative.
DEMAND’s push-along “big car” is designed for children with balance issues who are unable to ride a bicycle. Courtesy of DEMAND
“Being here has definitely helped us maximize the impact of each thing we design. We were very skilled at making one of something for a specific individual. While that’s still the purpose of DEMAND, to make something for an individual need, we’ve now got the machinery that helps us make much more repeatable things.”
DEMAND products refined at BLOQS include a ramp for boccia, a Paralympic sport in which athletes use the ramp to propel their ball to get as close to the target ball as possible, as well as a “big car,” a push-along car designed for children with balance issues who are unable to ride a bicycle. BLOQS’ machinery has reduced human error, and accelerated the production process, says Smith. The technology at BLOQS has also streamlined the production of an eye-led communication aid, which was originally designed for one user, Mark, who DEMAND has since collaborated with to enable it to be reproduced for others.
Growing the charity in this way is one of Smith’s key goals, as is collaborating more closely with users like Mark.
Courtesy of DEMAND
“Having access to the community makes it feel like we’re in a much bigger organization — we can lean on, and be inspired by, other people,” says Lynnette Smith, DEMAND head of creative.
“We would love to keep working with BLOQS to make sure that accessibility happens, potentially also in new places that BLOQS open as a partnership — that’s something we’d love to see the impact of,” says Smith.
Expansion is definitely in the cards, according to Parra, with the BLOQS team assessing the feasibility of a second site in either South London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester or Glasgow, to open in 2025. Beyond the UK, Parra sees global demand for spaces like BLOQS. Similar models are already emerging, like South Africa’s Made In Workshop, Ireland’s Benchspace and Artisans Asylum in the US, all offering flexible, affordable models with a range of machinery.
Cofounder Alan Parra sees BLOQS as a model that could be replicated in other cities. Courtesy of BLOQS
Parra envisions real potential in developing countries, where microfinance schemes have become common in helping small-scale entrepreneurs build businesses and a livelihood.
“The developing world, where everybody’s one or two generations away from a village, understands this concept of sharing resources so intrinsically, that we’re getting interest from South Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe [to open another BLOQS],” says Parra.
“We’re offering a model for how we can make the things that we need, in a way that is sustainable.”
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An App Is Helping Those With Vision Loss Navigate Urban Transit
This story was originally published by Next City.
The decal of brightly colored blocks on a black background looks like something straight out of the classic arcade game Space Invaders. But the goal of these codes isn’t to zap aliens — it’s to help people who are blind or have low vision find their bus or train stop.
As anyone who has ever boarded the bus going the wrong way can attest, wayfinding can be challenging for anyone, but people who have sight loss face special challenges.
NaviLens, a tech company based in Murcia, Spain, has developed an app that uses codes posted at bus stops or in train stations to provide real-time navigation via audio and haptic (vibration) cues, directing the user from the elevator in a train station, for example, to a nearby bus stop.
A bus stop in Murcia, Spain. Courtesy of NaviLens
“Despite it being not a huge percentage of our ridership, it’s very important to make sure that we provide accessibility for people experiencing partial or full sight loss,” says Thor Diakow, spokesperson for Metro Vancouver’s transit authority TransLink, which tested the app last year.
To use NaviLens as a rider, you first download the app to your phone. There are two versions: NaviLens for people who are blind or have low vision, and NaviLens Go for general wayfinding. When you open the app, NaviLens uses your phone’s camera to detect and read codes in the environment, reading off bus stop information and providing real-time guidance on how close you are to the stop, for example. Anyone can test out the app by requesting codes to download and print out.
The app detects codes without using GPS or requiring access to Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. NaviLens reports that codes can be read almost instantaneously and at a great distance, making it ideal for wayfinding.
A rider scans a NaviLens code at a New York City subway station. Courtesy of NaviLens
There are many potential applications for the app, says NaviLens project manager Miguel Miñano, through integration with a transit agency’s real-time information system.
By scanning the code, users “will also know the remaining minutes for the coming train, the status of the escalators or elevators and [other] real-time information that changes, but the code doesn’t need to change.”
So far, NaviLens codes have been incorporated into transit systems around the world, including New York City’s MTA.
A promising pilot in Vancouver
Last year, TransLink, Metro Vancouver’s regional transit provider, conducted a pilot using NaviLens at 16 stops within its system. As part of the pilot, 18 people tested NaviLens with the codes scanned a total of 2,792 times, mostly at the New Westminster SkyTrain station.
Tactile paving at a railway station in Singapore. Courtesy of NaviLens
The pilot was part of a $7 million project to increase accessibility for customers with vision loss. TransLink also added braille signage at all 8,400 of its bus stops and tactile walking surface indicators at 157 locations, the first Canadian transit agency to accomplish this feat.
Richard Marion, an accessibility consultant and member of TransLink’s transit access transit users advisory committee, helped test out the app.
“Where I see it shine would be in more complex interior environments,” says Marion, like metro stations with multiple trains or even municipal buildings that are hard to navigate.
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There were some challenges with the app, according to Marion and a report from TransLink. To use NaviLens, customers must own a smartphone and be willing to use it to navigate, unlike braille signage and tactile walking surface indicators.
“For someone that’s a bit older like myself that tends to not rely on my cell phone 100 percent of the time out on the street, it’s more of a nice to have,” says Marion. “Other accessibility features are more important to me.”
The six-month pilot was promising, but Diakow says there are no plans to expand it permanently.
A NaviLens code at a bus stop at Postiguet Beach in Spain. Courtesy of NaviLens
“It was mainly focused on these initiatives for the blind or partially sighted, so that’s kind of why we stuck to that for now. But it really helps us understand a broader wayfinding landscape for our system,” he says.
Future efforts might incorporate real-time navigation in different languages to help people from other countries navigate the system (NaviLens offers this feature as well).
The curb cut effect
Better wayfinding for people who are blind or have low vision can benefit all transit riders. As advocates have long pointed out, designing accessible spaces for people with disabilities makes things better for everyone.
It’s called the “curb cut effect”: Curb cuts — those parts of the curb that slope down to the street — make it easier for people in wheelchairs, people on bikes, people pushing strollers, older people, etc. to navigate streets and sidewalks.
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To improve wayfinding, Marion recommends that transit agencies focus on consistent and high-contrast signage across a region, so that people with some sight loss can easily distinguish between a no parking sign and a bus stop, for example, even if they don’t read braille. Making bus stops easy to identify would be helpful for wayfinding in general.
TransLink selected NaviLens through a competitive procurement process and paid for the pilot as part of its $7 million initiative to improve accessibility, though Diakow could not provide exact numbers on how much money was spent on Metro Vancouver’s NaviLens pilot.
A Barcelona tram station. Courtesy of NaviLens
According to Miñano, most cities that pilot NaviLens do so for free, with the company absorbing the cost of the pilot. Miñano says there should be no barriers to implementing NaviLens, whether it’s a big or small city, because the project can be tailored to the needs of the individual transit agency.
“When we talk about visual impairment, it’s not only about people [who are] totally blind, but this is on a spectrum from the totally blind to [people with] moderate sight loss,” says Miñano.
“So, it’s not [just] a question of metrics, but the commitment of the agency has to be with not leaving anyone behind.”
This story was produced through Next City’s Equitable Cities Fellowship for Social Impact Design, which is made possible with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.
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What If Finding Affordable Housing Worked More Like Matchmaking?
Dozens of framed photographs and paintings on the walls in Gabrielle’s cozy one-bedroom apartment in Boyle Heights showcase her artistry and cherished memories from trips to New Zealand and Europe. Her favorite is a black and white portrait of a miner in New Zealand panning for gold.
Gabrielle (who is comfortable printing only her first name) feels she struck gold, too, when she moved into this light-filled apartment in September 2019. She calls the place — with an open kitchen, a large bathroom and a sweeping view over park greenery and palm trees to the snow-capped mountains outside of Los Angeles — her “safe haven,” after feeling unsafe for several years.
A professional gemologist whose family once had five jewelry stores in Hawaii, she had struggled with alcoholism and mental health issues, and a suicide attempt left her in a coma for five days. While she was recovering from major neck surgery and fighting to be granted disability, she was living in her car in Los Angeles for several months and in transitional housing for more than 15 months. She wondered if she would ever have an apartment again or “be stuck in a hell hole forever.”
A 2020 report found that Los Angeles had more than one vacant residential unit for every unhoused person. Credit: Ocean Image Photography / Shutterstock
Gabrielle’s luck began to change when a California nonprofit called Brilliant Corners got involved. She had qualified for help from the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services Housing for Health division that gives priority to vulnerable clients with health issues. (Gabrielle contributes 30 percent of her income to the rent, and the rest is covered by the program’s subsidy.) But when the Boyle Heights apartment in a former hospital opened up, the landlord didn’t want to rent to her because of her bad credit. The real estate specialists at Brilliant Corners worked with Gabrielle’s case manager at the local nonprofit Life Steps to convince the landlord he was not taking a big risk in accepting Gabrielle as a renter.
Brilliant Corners was founded in 2004 by several nonprofit service providers with the mission to find housing for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in three California counties. In 2014, it significantly expanded its mission to extremely low-income Californians and began operating the Flexible Housing Subsidy Pool, in partnership with the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services and private partners such as the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, as part of the Housing for Health initiative. The Flex Pool is a supportive housing rent subsidy program that helps match vulnerable individuals with available housing options.
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The key is its flexibility: “For one landlord, it was a dealbreaker that the applicant had $3,000 in debt. So we paid off half the debt,” says Kolby Vaughn, Brilliant Corners’ associate housing services director in San Diego, which has a Flex Pool that is funded by the Regional Task Force on Homelessness. “For another client, cooking was really important so we spoke with the landlord [to see] if we could put a hot plate in his unit. These are the kind of hurdles we can overcome outside of the bureaucratic process.”
With a budget of over $200 million, braiding state, local and private funding sources, Brilliant Corners has been able to make a significant impact. “We have developed the capacity to administer over $10 million of rent subsidies every month,” according to Brilliant Corners CEO Bill Pickel. To date, the nonprofit has placed nearly 13,000 unhoused people into permanent homes in Los Angeles, averaging about 200 people a month. Brilliant Corners contracts with government agencies, such as the L.A. County Department of Health Services or Veterans Affairs, other nonprofits and community partners, and pairs up with Intensive Case Management Services to help clients achieve and maintain health and housing stability.
Its initial efforts in L.A. focused on the most vulnerable clients who frequently used costly emergency services. This is how Brilliant Corners makes the case that it actually saves the county money. According to a 2017 Rand study that analyzed the first two and a half years of the program, every $1 invested in the program saved the county $1.20 in health care and other social service costs. The idea is that once clients have stable housing, they have a better foundation to address other issues including their physical and mental health.
Brilliant Corners housing coordinator Adriana Flores helped Brian Wearren get over housing hurdles. Credit: Morgan Soloski
“Clients are typically referred by a government agency or a local case management nonprofit,” Pickel explains, as was the case with Life Steps, the local nonprofit that helped Gabrielle. “We meet individuals one on one.” BC’s housing coordinators provide support from the initial contact all the way through. “They are sticking with one person and don’t leave them alone once they are in an apartment,” says Pickel. “Most folks need some level of ongoing support.”
NPR calls Brilliant Corners a “real estate agency for the unhoused,” because what distinguishes it from other housing programs is its dedicated team of landlord engagement specialists who build long-standing relationships with landlords so they know when a unit will become available. This strategy is considerably different from the normal bureaucratic process where overworked case managers need to find the time to canvas neighborhoods and rental portals for available apartments.
“Especially in California communities where the real estate market is so intense and vacancies are so limited, landlords have lots of choices and might go with someone who just landed a job at Google or Facebook,” Pickel notes. “How can low-income folks possibly compete in such a competitive market to secure a unit? We help put everything in place to match somebody with the unit.” Brilliant Corners sometimes enters into long-term agreements with landlords; these could include guaranteeing rent from day one even before the tenant moves in and assurances that rent is paid on time.
Manola Rodriguez, for instance, who owns and manages 50 apartment units in Antelope Valley with her husband, met Brilliant Corners representatives when they were canvassing the neighborhood in 2014. She has been renting half of her units to Brilliant Corners clients ever since. “We believe in second chances,” she says. “It’s very hard for people to function without a roof over their head.”
Despite its convincing model, Brilliant Corners has dozens of one-star reviews on online platforms where both clients and landlords complain that they have been unable to reach anybody at the nonprofit when problems arose, such as a rodent infestation or behavioral issues with mentally ill renters. But Rodriguez says that Brilliant Corners representatives were always there to assist with problems.
Brilliant Corners client Brian Wearren enjoys his apartment building’s rooftop. Courtesy of Brilliant Corners
To cut through even more red tape and avoid cumbersome bureaucracy, Brilliant Corners is currently developing five multifamily housing sites in L.A., totaling 376 units of permanent supportive housing. The nonprofit is also managing its own residential care homes.
The situation is particularly dire in Los Angeles County, which counted more than 75,500 unhoused people in 2023, an uptick of nine percent from 2022. The homeless number in the city has gone up 10 percent to 46,260, and more than 2,000 unhoused people died last year in the city amidst the housing and fentanyl crises, more than six deaths a day. The alarming death rate, too, rises significantly every year.
A Harvard study shows that low-rent units under $1,400 a month have disappeared fast across all states, particularly in California. “We’re rehousing people faster and more people. Even though the number of people we are able to house is rising, the number of people who need affordable housing is rising faster,” Pickel admits. “What comes to mind is the unfortunate image of bailing water out of a boat, but there’s more water coming in than we can bail out.”
On her first day in office in December 2022, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass signed an emergency declaration on homelessness, promising to cut red tape and fast-track affordable housing permits. Activists laud her efforts, but they are far from enough. “Billions are being spent. What are we doing wrong?” Pickel asks. “I think we have a multi-generational complex social problem that includes the failure to build enough housing at various income levels, including middle-income housing, workforce housing and deeply affordable housing. We also have a tragically fractured social safety net and an unfolding crisis of people in severe distress, whether it’s from mental health, substance abuse or so many other reasons. It is really hard to develop our way out of this problem. We would need something in the order of $10 to $12 billion a year. That’s a staggering number.”
Similarly, in San Diego, Kolby Vaughn says that more people end up unhoused for the first time than Brilliant Corners and other services can put in apartments. Many seniors are aging into homelessness because their pensions are not keeping up with housing prices. Since launching the San Diego Flex Pool in October 2020, Brilliant Corners has housed 900 individuals and families in need, with a focus on youth, veterans and those with complex health issues. But the need continues to mount: California needs 1.4 million more affordable rental units.
At the same time, studies also show that a significant percentage of high-rent housing is lying vacant, held for its value not as shelter, but for investment purposes. A 2020 report found that Los Angeles had more than one vacant residential unit for every unhoused person.
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This is where Brilliant Corners sees a lever to offer landlords incentives to rent to their clients by giving them assurances other nonprofits can’t. “We’re not building our way out of homelessness,” Brilliant Corners housing coordinator Adriana Flores says. She has experienced housing insecurity herself. “A lot of us have been in our clients’ shoes,” she says, and she calls what she offers them “a hand up, not a handout.”
Her client Brian Wearren is a success story. After being honorably discharged from the Navy and then having been incarcerated for 25 years for assault and robbery, Wearren faced some hurdles to finding housing: He had no rental history, no credit and no income. But he found himself a one-bedroom apartment in San Diego on the 12th floor with a view over the city. Brilliant Corners helped him pay for application fees and furniture, and Flores assured the landlord the rent was guaranteed with his VA (Veterans Affairs) rent voucher. Now he works two jobs as a plumber and a fiber optics cable installer and wants to pay it forward.
“I’m extremely lucky and had a lot of support, but not everybody is so lucky,” Wearren says. “I want to establish transitional housing for guys like me who come out of the military or out of incarceration.”
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The Perks of Virtual Coworking With Strangers
From a young age, Alexis Haselberger’s son always asked someone to stick around when he needed to get chores or homework done. At first, she wondered why he needed help.
“Then I realized that he didn’t need me to engage with him, he just needed to know that my body was there,” says Haselberger, a time management and productivity coach in San Francisco.
Though they were not initially aware of it, Haselberger and her son were practicing “body doubling,” which involves having someone alongside to help you focus on a task. The term was first coined in the 1990s by a coach specializing in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Haselberger’s now-13-year-old son has not been diagnosed with ADHD, but he continues to find body doubling helpful. So does Haselberger, who does have ADHD. She asks her husband to be around while she completes certain tasks, and she organizes regular video calls with work peers to make progress on “important but not urgent” goals. They start by sharing objectives, then switch off cameras and focus for an hour.
Alexis Haselberger began practicing body doubling before she knew the term. Courtesy of Alexis Haselberger
Video calls like these are part of a growing trend: structured online sessions, in groups or in pairs, for anyone who wants to resist distractions and get things done.
In focus
The exact cause of ADHD, which affects an estimated five to eight percent of children globally and often continues into adulthood, is unknown. Among adults, it can create problems with time management, following instructions, and focusing or completing tasks. Although more commonly diagnosed in children, diagnoses are rising rapidly among adults in some countries, particularly among women.
Kirsty Baggs-Morgan, 50, who lives in Malta and runs a business supporting HR professionals, describes herself as “an absolute shocker” for delaying boring tasks until the last minute. For a while, she would ask her assistant to join her on a call when she needed to complete a task, “but we’d end up just chatting for the whole hour.”
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That changed with Baggs-Morgan’s ADHD diagnosis in August 2023. A coach recommended Flow Club, a company that hosts “virtual coworking sessions designed to drop you into productive flow.” As in Haselberger’s video calls, participants join a session and share their intentions, then get on with their work until the allotted time is up. In addition to multiple daily sessions, Flow Club users benefit from a supportive community — well over half of users are neurodivergent — and special features to aid focus, such as optional music and the choice of verbal or non-verbal sessions.
Already, Baggs-Morgan has racked up well over 130 Flow Club sessions — often while sitting in a physical coworking space. “For me it’s been an absolute game-changer,” she says. While the physical community provides real-life interaction, the online one helps her to get work done, and even to stick to a regular morning routine. “I like step-by-step instructions. I’ll actually do it because it’s written down,” she says, referring to the to-do list that every participant fills in at the start of a session. Other users might be doing anything from decluttering to writing a book — Baggs-Morgan even recalls someone using a session to take a nap.
Kirsty Baggs-Morgan often participates in online coworking sessions while also in a physical coworking space. Credit: Andreea Tufescu
Focusmate is similar to Flow Club, but puts users into pairs instead of groups. It was founded in 2016 by Taylor Jacobson, who had long fought procrastination himself. In 2011, he asked to work remotely — “and then I got fired from my job,” he explains, “because I just could not focus.” When he later got into coaching, he discovered the power of virtual coworking, and was convinced it could help millions of others like him.
Focusmate has now hosted over five million sessions, with users in over 150 countries. Like Flow Club, it was not designed with neurodivergence in mind (nor was Jacobson initially aware of the concept of body doubling), although more than a third of current users identify as neurodivergent and about 28 percent have an ADHD diagnosis. And while Focusmate is billed as being for “anyone who wants to get things done,” Jacobson suggests its value is much deeper, as he knows from experience: “When we say procrastination… you’re not living the life you want to live. ‘Procrastination’ sounds kind of trite, but it’s not. It’s really demoralizing and sad.”
Feedback from Focusmate users backs that up, Jacobson says: “It’s insane how life-changing this is for people.” A recent company survey among 212 regular users with ADHD found that their productivity increased by an average of 152 percent. Ninety-eight percent said Focusmate helped them make good use of their time, 82 percent that it helped them feel less lonely and isolated, and 88 percent that it improved their well-being. Flow Club does not have data specific to ADHD users, but co-founder Ricky Yean points to its “exuberant” testimonials and the fact that users attend an average of 10 to 11 sessions weekly.
CEO of the brain
Joining strangers online to get work done has become increasingly common, particularly since the Covid-19 pandemic. Caveday and Flown offer virtual coworking for anyone; other services target particular audiences, like Writers’ Hour or Preacher’s Block. Online “study rooms” for students are also widespread.
Flow Club sessions include features to aid focus, such as optional music and goal lists. Credit: Flow Club
But why do they work? Focusmate cites research on the benefit of “precommitment” and social pressure. Yean points out that even brief social interactions unleash dopamine, which drives motivation (dopamine levels can be lower among people with ADHD). Other research finds that we may change behavior when we know we’re being observed, that company can have a calming effect, and that our performance improves when we train alongside others.
For Haselberger, joining a body doubling session provides that small but important push to get started. “We know from the research that action begets motivation, and not the other way around,” she says. “If you are body doubling, then you’re saying, ‘Okay, I’m going to do this thing.’”
Zareen Ali, the London-based co-founder of Cogs, a mental well-being app for neurodiverse people, suggests body doubling is a way of outsourcing the “CEO of the brain” — the part that’s telling you what to do. “Having someone else take on that role acts as an external motivator,” says Ali.
Belonging matters
For neurodivergent people, there’s also the benefit of feeling less judged. Neurodivergent young people still face “a lot of bullying,” notes Ali, who studied educational neuroscience, and they often value peer support.
Kirsty Holden, 37, echoes the importance of finding like-minded people. She is awaiting an ADHD diagnosis, following years of feeling that something wasn’t right. “I grew up not really feeling a part of anything,” she says.
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Holden, an online business manager based in Yorkshire, England, was not tempted by platforms like Focusmate or Flow Club, but joined the ADHD Business Collective, a coach-led program that includes body doubling sessions. She values the personal element: “Just knowing that those people get me and know my name… that’s what I really like.”
“For a lot of ADHD-ers, we haven’t felt safe to share what is going on in our minds,” Holden adds. But that is changing. “There are people out there that understand this, there are places where we belong.”
More scaffolding
Online body doubling is unlikely to work for everyone. Neurodiversity is “a massive, umbrella term,” Ali points out, and even people with the same diagnosis may be very different. She herself is autistic and finds body doubling distracting.
One of the barriers highlighted by both Focusmate and Flow Club is apprehension about meeting new people. Asking for a body double might also feel like admitting you need help, says Jacobson. Users of both platforms are majority women; Yean wonders if men find it harder to show some vulnerability.
Flow Club founders David Tran and Ricky Yean. Credit: Flow Club
Things have come a long way since the pandemic-prompted surge of remote working. Tools like Zoom expanded what was possible, but there was a lack of tech to properly support new ways of working, says Yean. People were “burning out like crazy” as they struggled with more responsibilities than ever and blurred boundaries between work and personal life.
“We went from ‘we can’t’ to ‘we can,’ but that’s such a low bar!” says Yean. “Are we thriving? Are we happy? … And are we able to manage all this?”
Flow Club — which aims to create a space of positivity and friendliness — is “in our little corner of the internet, which is trying to create a little bit more support, a little bit more scaffolding, a little bit more camaraderie with other people who share your mission or share your goals,” Yean continues. “I think we have learned that there’s ample opportunity to create more of these types of spaces that are much more supportive. And I think you can define ‘supportive’ in so many different ways.”
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Finding Justice Over the Airwaves
Saidu Umar thought his future was secure in 2006 when he poured his life savings into a piece of land in Sokoto, a city in northwestern Nigeria, for ₦120,000 ($77). His dreams, however, spiraled into a nightmare when, 16 years later, the children of the late owner laid claim to the land.
The late owner’s children claimed that their father hadn’t sold the land before he passed away, making it rightfully theirs. In the legal debacle that unfolded, they alleged possession of documents proving their ownership and demanded that Umar either leave the land or provide financial compensation.
Shocked and confused, the 53-year-old farmer sought refuge with the police and filed a complaint. His claim was later dismissed because he, as is common in Sokoto, had purchased the land in good faith via a verbal agreement with the owner and could not provide any validating documents.
Saidu Umar was able to reclaim his land in 2022 thanks to the Kukana radio show. Credit: Abdullah Tijani
“I tried everything, but people would tell me that I didn’t have evidence to prove that I owned the land. I even met with several community leaders asking for help but to no avail,” Umar says. “That was until I pleaded my case on Kukana.”
Kukana, roughly translated to “my woes” in English, is a weekly radio show with over 1.7 million active listeners, as reported by the show’s hosts. Since its inception in 2016, the program, which airs on Vision FM, Sokoto’s first private radio station, has committed to voicing the grievances of those unable to access Nigeria’s justice system. In each episode, hosts of the show present victim complaints and then work towards providing solutions.
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With his dream of owning land almost slipping away, Umar met and explained his ordeal to the host of Kukana, Ibrahim Salihu Isa, who, after researching the matter, invited him to appear on the show. During the episode, Isa introduced Umar to Ibrahim Tudundoki, a Sokoto-based human rights activist and lawyer.
Tudunoki took the matter to the Sultan’s Palace, Sokoto’s traditional arbiter. Because the Sultan was traveling, he discussed Umar’s case with a local judge, who invited the divisional police officer to investigate further. At this time, the late owner’s brother, Chika Maidaw, got in touch with Isa and confirmed that his deceased brother had indeed sold the land.
Ibrahim Salihu Isa, the host of the Kukana radio show that has helped address the grievances of thousands of people. Credit: Abdullah Tijani
“He listened to me on Kukana and was willing to come and testify,” Umar explains. “That was how I got my land back.”
Tudundoki, a regular guest on Kukana, believes in the show’s cause and regularly communicates with Isa to follow up on cases of vulnerable people in Sokoto free of charge.
“Most of the people who appear on Kukana have nowhere to turn to, and if a program like this is not available, they will end up being victims of injustice,” Tudundoki says.
Sokoto is Nigeria’s poorest state, with nearly 90 percent of its population of over six million, living below the poverty line, and more than three-quarters unable to read or write in English, the country’s official language. According to Isa, Kukana’s popularity as an alternative platform for justice stems from these socioeconomic hurdles that render the legal system an unnavigable labyrinth to the majority.
Mu’azu Habibu Sabaru, the chairman of the Joint Disabled Association, resorted to the show after the association’s social welfare stipend was cut in 2022. Credit: Abdullah Tijani
Among those who can relate to this are members of Sokoto’s differently-abled community, whose government-issued monthly allowance was withheld for almost a year before they presented their case on Kukana.
Mu’azu Habibu Sabaru, the chairman of the Joint Disabled Association, a coalition of different groups of people with disabilities, explains that the social welfare program was first introduced in 2007 and included a monthly stipend of ₦6,500 ($4.16), which was issued to about 7,000 beneficiaries. However, over the years, the payment disbursement became increasingly irregular until it was halted completely in June 2022.
“It was only after we went on Kukana that the governor visited us,” Sabaru says “He had heard our complaint on the radio show.”
Not long after the meeting, the government resumed the program. Sabaru even revealed that the monthly stipend was upped to ₦10,000 ($6.30).
After a resident from Kurfi voiced concerns about illegal encroachment on government school land during a segment on Kukana, the land infringement stopped completely. Credit: Abdullah Tijani
Over the past seven years, Kukana’s team says they’ve been instrumental in transforming the lives and addressing the grievances of more than 100,000 individuals.
“Kukana has helped a lot of people. Sometimes a community of more than a thousand people would be impacted,” he adds.
The host recalls an incident involving a resident from Kurfi, a village outside of Sokoto, who voiced concerns about illegal encroachment on government school land during a segment on Kukana. Following his appearance on the show, it seemed as though “the perpetrator was deterred, because the land infringement ceased altogether.”
“After the case, the government went there and started building a wall around the school. I was so elated when I heard this,” he exclaims.
In Nigeria, the simplicity and wide reach of radio as a mass communication tool have primed it to become a viable last resort for many victims of injustice, according to Lekan Otunfodurin, the executive director of Media Career Development Network, a nonprofit group that trains aspiring media professionals.
“Much like mass religion, radio’s appeal is far-reaching,” Otunfodurin notes regarding the success of radio shows focused on advocacy.
The school land in Kurfi village, Sokoto, that has been saved thanks to the radio show. Credit: Abdullah Tijani
Like Kukana, Berekete Family is another reality radio and television program focused on civil rights. It airs on Human Rights Radio 101.1 in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, and streams online on several social media platforms. The program, hosted by Ahmed Isah, invites people to share their problems and grievances on air while Isah tries to bridge the gap between claimants and relevant authorities.
Otunfodurin believes that despite the predominance of online media and television, radio remains important through social justice platforms such as Kukana and Berekete Family.
“The lesson here is that radio, as a form of media, is still relevant and very important in seeking justice,” Otunfodurin says. “It also costs less when compared to other forms of media.”
Despite these successes, there are times when the show’s crew feels hopeless. In many cases, the accused refuse to give their account of the story when approached by Kukana, halting any potential progress that could bring justice to the victims.
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“There was a case of a man who came to complain that an army officer driving a car hit his mother, who died from her injuries,” Isa says. “We approached [the officer] to confirm the story and hear his side, but he declined. All efforts to get him to speak to us failed, and we couldn’t air the story.”
This type of challenge is not unique to Kukana, as noted by Otunfodunrin, who believes that all media outlets engaged in investigative journalism or advocating for justice for the oppressed encounter such issues at some juncture.
“What the host [of Kukana] can do in this situation is seek collaboration with other media platforms, especially ones with a national presence, to make the story public,” Otunfodunrin explains. “When more people are engaged, the perpetrators would be forced to grant investigators an audience.”
The article is published in collaboration with Egab.
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United Nations Summons UK Government Over Breaches of UN Convention on Disabled People’s Rights
A key United Nations committee has summoned the UK Government to face scrutiny over failing to properly implement the Committee's calls for a UK-wide disability strategy.
The UN’s Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) says disabled people across the country are being denied their basic human rights. These include some disabled people lacking proper access to food, water and sanitation.
A report into the breaches of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities found the UK in breach of articles 19, 27 and 28 - respectively, the right to live independently and be included in the community, the right to work and employment and the right to adequate living standards and social protection.
The Government was due to appear before the committee in August last year to answer questions about their progress with the Committee's recommendations, but the UK forced it to be rescheduled to March 2024.
At the time, the Committee found that not only was the UK Government in breach of three articles of the Convention, but its actions against disabled people were “grave and systematic”.
They included the gaps in safeguards for disabled people, unimplemented elements of the Equality Act 2010, and a lack of resources to ensure the Act's correct implementation.
The UN's scathing critique included findings that the government’s overhaul of the disability benefits system resulted in hostility towards the disabled community and wasn’t backed up by the evidence.
Further, a lack of opportunities for input led to welfare applicants' voices not being “taken into account” and they were not involved in shaping reform, the UNCRPD found.
As a result, prior to implementing so-called welfare reforms, the government knew the adverse effects that such reforms would result in, including breaches of their rights, the UN committee found.
Nevertheless, UK ministers persisted with sweeping changes to disability support, leading to breaches of three clauses of the UNCRPD.
Damaging Delays
The Government finally published an updated Disability Action Plan, a document detailing thirty-two “practical measures to improve disabled people’s daily lives”, on the 5th Feb – the month before the UNCRPD hearing.
Now the 18th March hearing will put the UK under real scrutiny from the United Nations and pressure from disabled people's organisations for the first time since 2017, exposing their record on disability rights in front of the UN and the public alike.
However, the Government will likely be judged more on the actions it has taken rather than those it intends to take - a consequence of releasing an action plan this close to the hearing.
Despite the Government rescheduling their appearance to 18th March 2024, many disabled people and Disabled-led organisations advocating for the community did attend, detailing how Government policy and cuts in funding had led to negative impacts on the disabled community.
The hearing at the UNCRPD on the 18th March could ultimately shape the next steps for the UK on disability policy, as the Government faces scrutiny over its record so far and whether its proposed actions will fulfil its duties under the Convention.
If not, further monitoring from the EHRC (Equality and Human Rights Commission) and UKIM (UK Independent Mechanism) is almost inevitable until the UN Committee is satisfied that the UK is fulfilling its duties to the disabled population.
The UK Independent Mechanism, of which the EHRC is part, also consists of the equality and human rights commissions of Scotland and Northern Ireland too.
The UKIM was set up to promote and protect but also monitor the UK’s implementation of the Convention, ensuring the rights of disabled people in Britain.
In August 2023, it produced the report which assessed the progress the UK had made since they were found in breach of the Convention.
A Plan Without Action
Amelia Peckham, Co-Founder of the firm Cool Crutches and Walking Sticks, said: “Unfortunately, the UK Government has not yet demonstrated action when it comes to disability. They’ve talked about it, they’ve made a plan for it, but what the disabled community needs to see is action, prioritisation and, quite honestly, at worst, attendance to global scale discussions around disability.
“If they are going to do as they say, and they really want to drive action and change for the disabled community in the UK, this is an indisputably integral step and opportunity to show commitment and exactly how they plan to do it.” The Special Rapporteur for the UNCRPD, Stig Langvad, said that it was of “deep concern” that the UK considered itself to be a leader in upholding the rights of disabled people.
Disability Rights UK goes as far to say that Government inaction had led to the “widespread erosion of the rights of Disabled citizens across the UK”.
Speaking to Byline Times, Mikey Erhardt, a campaigner for the organisation, said: “There are 14 million Disabled people in the UK. Although we are not a homogenous group, we all want to live in an inclusive society where everyone has a fulfilling life and feels connected and valued.
“It was no surprise to our movement that in 2016, the United Kingdom was the first country to be investigated for violating the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Disabled People. The investigation found "grave and systemic" violations of Disabled people's rights, and we know things have only gotten worse since.”
Erhardt added: “We hope the UN holds the Government to account for the fact that our lives are not valued equally to others, for the fact that we experience discrimination and oppression in our daily lives and that their policies have and continue to create disabling barriers to our inclusion across society.”
Watchdog Warning
The UN’s damning criticism last year sparked demands for urgent action from the UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission.
The ECHR found last summer that despite the insistence of the Committee for the UK Government to carry out a "cumulative impact assessment" of its policies affecting the disabled population, this had not happened. Ministers maintained that the "consideration of equality impacts under the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED), as established by the Equality Act 2010" was sufficient.
But the Government’s lack of progress has concerned many experts and those in the field. Liverpool Hope University’s Centre for Culture and Disability Studies were among them.
Dr Ella Houston, a Senior Lecturer in Disability Studies at the university said the UK government's reluctance to acknowledge their "violations of disabled people's human rights under the UN Convention" indicates that despite breakthroughs in policy and legislation, "discrimination continues to be widespread and rampant."
“In regards to their treatment of disabled people's human rights, instead of burying their hands in the sand, politicians ought to be hanging their heads in shame,” she added.
Meanwhile, devolved Governments in Wales and Scotland, have conducted their own impact assessments of UK disability policy to varying extents.
Wales, where social security policy is not a devolved issue, has nonetheless reaffirmed its commitment to the social model of disability, a model which says that people are disabled by societal barriers, not their individual impairments.
Scotland has carried out "some generalised impact assessments" of devolved policy around income tax and its effect on disabled people. However, impact assessment of broader policy in the Scottish Government on disabled people "is lacking", according to the Equality and Human Rights Commision (EHRC).
Yet for some disabled people, the action taken is not enough to show significant progress in the UK’s disability rights and equality record, nor do they see positive impacts from Government policy in their own lives.
Impact assessments may, in theory, uncover the problems, but things have not improved, and in some areas, they are worsening.
“It's been seven years since the UN first criticised the Tory Government's dire treatment of disabled people, and in that time, the situation has only gone from extremely bad to abjectly terrible.
“Turning up to one hearing will not undo 14 years of deliberately punitive policies, and the UN needs to develop ways to actually hold the Government accountable for its repeated breaches of the convention," Lucy Webster, a journalist and disability advocate, told Byline Times.
The Government’s Disability Unit, part of the Cabinet Office, was approached for comment but did not not respond in time.
Correction: This piece originally stated that the Government's Disability Action Plan was published on 5th March, just before the UN hearing. It was in fact published on 5th February, and the article has been amended to note this. We've also relabelled a walking stick company as a firm rather than a non-profit.
The Frida Effect: In Praise of Disabled Women
How many of you know that Frida Kahlo, the famous Mexican artist and revolutionary, was disabled – someone who experienced chronic pain throughout her magnificent life?
Having been disabled by polio as a child, Frida was injured in an accident as a teenager, resulting in lifelong medical challenges.
The 2002 Hollywood film Frida, starring Salma Hayek, tries hard – but as a disabled woman I feel it sold us, and perhaps Frida, short.
I’ve read Frida biographies that have left me dissatisfied in their exploration of the artist in the context of her disability.
Liz Crow’s short film, Frida Kahlo’s Corset, bucks the non-disabled trend to position her in terms of a tragic life. Compelling and beautiful, it is an experimental drama following Frida’s “journey of transformation” through a series of orthopaedic corsets she wore “because of impairments”.
One reason I’ve always loved Frida is her refusal to surrender to the expected. Her work speaks for itself, and to each of us, as powerfully today as it did when she created it.
The disabled women’s collective, Sisters of Frida, still celebrates her pride and energy, “bringing disabled women together, mobilising and sharing through lived experience”.
Disabled women are my pillars of strength, wisdom and joy. But, in my earlier years, things were very different.
In the 1980s I would avoid the disabled – particularly disabled women – because I never saw anyone like me.
I was a freshly-baked baby punk indie kid yelling about anarcho-socialist politics, writing poems about the Brixton riots, stuck in my bedroom, barriers beginning with the steps at the front door of my family home.
Isolated in a poor rural backwater, I never went anywhere and my only connection to the outside world was by telephone – always on financial rations – or by handwritten letters. The few friendships I had (always girls) were those formed during stays in hospital or special school, which were never located within the neighbourhood I was growing up in.
And disabled people were an amorphous blob, very rarely seen on any platform. Only on occasion were they wheeled out for horrifically grotesque shows like Jim’ll Fix It – yes, prolific sex offender Jimmy Savile’s BBC ‘family’ show.
Disabled women were best ‘not seen and not heard’. Those I did occasionally encounter were simply not my tribe. Even feminism let me down.
I remember reading feminist library books – Andrea Dworkin, Kate Millet, and others – to find that the only references to people like me was as the handicapped, cared for, disabled women’s existence obliterated into nothing but the condemned role of being the burden on other ‘real’ women who already carried a disproportionate weight through discrimination and misogyny.
I was young, desperately curious, haphazardly educated, and enraged with the typical arrogance of youth. Disabled women of that time were mostly elderly, with no fashion sense and awful haircuts. Sometimes they smelled terribly, while I begged an aunt to buy me Charlie perfume for my birthday. I rejected any association with these women.
The awakening came, as these things often do, through art and friendship.
The few friends I had, back then mostly on a snail-mail basis, would send me postcards. I remember one I received depicting Frida with a flower in her hair. The postcard gave no indication she was disabled – that information was provided by the dear disabled woman who sent it to me. I would ask these friends to source me other postcards of punk artists such as Siouxsie Sioux. I decided I wanted to be in a rebel tribe with these women.
Well-meaning social workers would send me newspaper clippings – mostly in connection to dreary, overwhelmingly male-driven disability charities. Occasionally in all this, a light would shine.
My snail-mail friend Janet sent me clippings about Shape Arts, a charity for disabled people wanting to work in culture and the arts. My aunt sent me another about Artsline, a disabled-led charity promoting access to arts and entertainment venues for disabled people.
So I knew there was hope. But not living in a city made progress slow in connecting with like-minded disabled women. I had no means of transport and no personal assistants, and so endured scarce interaction.
Then an epiphany came while I was on a hospital ward for young disabled women. Doctors – mostly men – liked to belittle me when I claimed that I was a poet, and on the ward round my soon-to-be sister-soulmate overheard one such exchange. She changed my life and we became a team. We were transforming ourselves, and soon others.
We signed up to the revolutionary Disability Arts in London magazine published in the 80s, with two powerhouse disabled women as figureheads: Editor Elspeth Morrison, and the much-missed late Sian Vasey who was instrumental to its establishment. It certainly exploded those old presumptions of mine.
But my story of my sister-soulmate isn’t unique. The collective strength of women working together is unparalleled – and with disabled women it is no different. From disabled suffragette Rosa May Billinghurst to more recent ‘sheroes’, our reach has grown – and globally.
A select few include the late momentous American Judith Hueman, often seen as the ‘mother of the disability rights movement’. Witty speaker and campaigner Stella Young, who came up with the term ‘inspiration porn’ (a favourite of mine). Alice Wong, whose groundbreaking memoir Year of the Tiger was a recent game-changing joy of a book. Journalist Francis Ryan at the Guardian. Reporter Rachel Charlton Dailey, who commissioned my centrepiece for the Mirror newspaper’s ‘Disabled Britain: Doing it for Ourselves’ series. Suzanne Bull MBE at Attitude is Everything, which enables many more disabled people to go to gigs than ever before. Crossbench House of Lords peers Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson and Dame Jane Campbell. Award-winning actor and activist Liz Carr, who has an unshakeable integrity and knows the absolute hard graft of pushing one’s artistry and creativity in a commonly hostile non-disabled world.
The list is long and glorious. Many have passed but will not be forgotten.
Let us end with Frida, Queen of the Cripples.
At her first solo exhibition at the Galería Arte Contemporaneo in Mexico in 1953, it was arranged for her to attend in her four-poster bed. “All the cripples of Mexico are coming to kiss me. But only one mountain can know the core of another mountain.”
Viva la vida. Viva us all, disabled women everywhere. We have much to give to the world.
Penny Pepper is an award-winning author, poet and disabled activist
The Arizona School Setting Kids With Autism Up for Success
Like many students across the country, 16-year-old Ayden von West has high hopes for his education and career once he graduates from high school. “I want to get into engineering,” he says. “I’m probably going to go to college for aerodynamics or aerospace engineering because I want to get more into the engineering and flight design of drones.”
Statistically, however, von West faces a more difficult path than most do when it comes to achieving his dream. That’s because von West is autistic.
Students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) face tough odds after high school: According to a study published in the medical journal Pediatrics in 2012, only 35 percent of 18-year-olds with ASD go to college, and of those who graduate, only 15 percent are employed. More recent studies have similar findings: Only 36 percent of young adults on the spectrum attempt postsecondary education, including two- and four-year colleges or vocational schooling. Of those who do, only 38.8 percent will complete their degree. This means that only about 14 percent of students with autism go on to graduate from college.
High school math teacher Supreet Kaur, AZACS’ STEAM and Innovation Director, leads students in coding and robotics using Go Pi Go. Courtesy of AZACS
In many cases, what stands in the way is not the youths’ intellectual faculties or physical capabilities but instead the lack of specialized education and transitional support services.
In Phoenix, Arizona, one woman — and one school — is seeking to change that.
Diana Diaz-Harrison is the founder of Arizona Autism Charter School (AZACS), the first and only autism-focused charter network in the Southwest.
A former teacher, Diaz-Harrison was working in broadcasting and Spanish-language media when her son, Sammy, was diagnosed with autism at age two. Finding it difficult to access quality public education or affordable private schooling as he got older, she immersed herself in his care and the educational best practices for the disorder.
Courtesy of AZACS
“People who don’t have expertise in the neurodiverse, or autism, might look at Sammy and think, ‘Just keep him busy; make sure he doesn’t get in trouble.’ But he can do better than that.” –Diana Diaz-Harrison, AZACS founder
“I did pay for private school for a couple of years, but that was not sustainable,” she recalls. “I learned that there were autism charters in other states, and I thought, ‘You know, somebody here in Arizona should start a tuition-free autism charter school in the state.’ After a lot of knocking on doors, I realized that that person had to be me.”
In 2014, Diaz-Harrison established the first AZACS campus for kindergarten through fifth grade. In its first year, the school served 90 students. Today, AZACS has expanded to almost 900 students across four campuses in greater Phoenix, including a high school and a fully accredited online component. And, in fall 2023, it opened a campus for grades six through twelve in Tucson.
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With an average student-to-faculty ratio of three to one, AZACS is set up to help students master the foundations in reading, math and science and help them develop behavior and social skills that will benefit them long after they leave the classroom. Learning modules based on Woz ED, an individualized STEM curriculum designed by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, teach both academic and social skills. Students can also participate in sports, fine arts, dance, gardening — they can even take care of the school’s two desert tortoises.
Caring for the school’s desert tortoises is among the activities open to students. Courtesy of AZACS
Nisha Sharma has been teaching middle school math at AZACS for three years. “AZACS takes a much more rounded approach to the education of our students,” she says. “I’ve worked in schools where they were very much targeting just ELA (English language arts) and math. We use a lot of hands-on tools, and we have smaller class sizes, which allows more one-on-one contact with our students and allows us to better prepare them for all those different fields.”
An elective culinary program offers high school students the opportunity to work in a professional commercial kitchen. Upon completion of the course, the students can receive their food handler’s certification, which helps to qualify them for jobs in the restaurant industry. The school also operates a student-run coffee shop, Puzzle Press, that provides drinks to the teachers and other staff members.
“Kids make the coffee. They learn measurements, payment, money skills,” Diaz-Harrison explains as she sips from a to-go coffee cup, the label of which showcases a puzzle piece logo. “Autism is a spectrum. There are some kids who are very intellectually impacted like my son. Yet he can be productive. He helped make this coffee. He made the label. People who don’t have expertise in the neurodiverse, or autism, might look at Sammy and think, ‘Just keep him busy; make sure he doesn’t get in trouble.’ But he can do better than that. Every human needs a certain level of feeling productive, having a reason to get up in the morning.”
Courtesy of AZACS
“Maybe they want to go into web design or the more technological aspects of the career paths, and here they get that option before venturing out into the real world where even we, as neurotypical people, struggle with the day to day.” –Tyler Sherrill, AZACS middle school science teacher
School initiatives like Puzzle Press are aimed at improving employment prospects for individuals with ASD — prospects that are statistically as dismal as those for higher education. A 2015 Drexel University report found that “only 58 percent of young adults on the spectrum worked for pay outside the home between high school and their early 20s.” Those who do work often hold low-skill, low-paying jobs.
To date, AZACS has produced two small graduating classes: four students and six students, respectively. “We just had our first kiddo who went on to a four-year college, to Grand Canyon University. He’s in a special program there, but he’s doing well,” Diaz-Harrison notes with pride. Other graduates have gone on to attend Scottsdale Community College or join the workforce. One entered his family’s auto mechanic business.
“We’ve come a long way in providing education, but there’s a lot of work to be done regarding what happens post-school,” Diaz-Harrison explains. “It’s amazing that some of our kids can go to college or other career paths and have that intellectual ability. They just need help with executive functioning and social skills, but they can be trained on that and be wonderful. That’s why we’re taking matters into our own hands and building something that’s a good bridge between when they age out and we technically can’t serve them as a school.”
Supreet Kaur shows a high school student how to correctly use code to control the dancing robot as part of AZACS’ Woz ED curriculum. Courtesy of AZACS
In Arizona, charter and public schools can only serve students in grades K through 12. However, students with special needs can remain in school until they turn 22. AZACS’ culinary program and coffee shop are part of the school’s Post-Secondary Innovation and Entrepreneurial Career Education (PIECE) Academy, which provides career and vocational training for students ages 18 to 22. It includes a specialty STEAM lab where students such as von West learn how to do things like design, 3-D print and fly drones — and at the end of the module are eligible for an FAA drone license. A vocational lab and internships with local businesses also are part of the academy and help make students work-ready.
And recently, AZACS was awarded a new state contract that allows it to offer supported employment for young adults past age 22.
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“That’s a very vulnerable time for [young people], because for those who are not necessarily eligible to go to college or need supported employment, there’s not much for them to do after 22,” Diaz-Harrison says. “Our students who age out or graduate can flow into this if it’s a good fit for them.”
To that end, in 2023, AZACS purchased the building that houses its administrative offices. On the ground floor of the structure, which is adjacent to the school’s main campus in midtown Phoenix, it will open four businesses that will serve the public: a shipping and receiving depot, similar to a UPS store; a community-facing branch of Puzzle Press; a retail shop that will produce and sell branded items, such as shirts and jackets; and a coding and gaming design studio called Game Changer Studio. Students and graduates will operate the businesses.
A rendering of the future public-facing Puzzle Press branch. Courtesy of AZACS
“A lot of times as teachers, we hear the questions, ‘Why does this matter? Why do I need to know this?’” says middle school science teacher Tyler Sherrill, who has been with AZACS for four years. “These businesses will let us say, ‘Here are four opportunities where you can use these skills.’ They will allow the kids to branch out and see where they want to go — do they want to be in the back of a company, such as with our T-shirt-making business, or do they want to be up front dealing with customers at our Puzzle Press coffee shop? Maybe they want to go into web design or the more technological aspects of the career paths, and here they get that option before venturing out into the real world where even we, as neurotypical people, struggle with the day to day.”
According to Diaz-Harrison, the businesses, complete with a ribbon-cutting ceremony, will open on June 15 — Sammy’s 22nd birthday.
“Part of my goal is changing the narrative and showing the world what students with autism can do and flipping that narrative,” Diaz-Harrison says. “Yes, the challenges are real, but these guys with the right support can overcome them and do amazing things.”
The post The Arizona School Setting Kids With Autism Up for Success appeared first on Reasons to be Cheerful.
Private Equity in Public Services: The Case of Special Educational Needs Schools
Earlier this month, a meeting of Nuneaton Borough Council attracted controversyl after a video showed members referring to children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) as “just badly behaved” and flippantly asking whether the growing numbers of SEND pupils in state schools was “something in the water”.
Nuneaton currently has 15,000 SEND children in state schools, which reflects growth in SEND pupils across the country, but the funding for such children has failed to rise in response leaving parents at the end of their tether.
Byline Times investigated to find out why.
Problems in the State Sector
Kate Atrill-Hewitt is 37 years old and lives in Ivybridge, Devon with her husband and 9-year-old son “J” who is Autistic. Earlier this month, she spoke to Byline Times expressing her frustration at the Local Authority’s inability to provide adequate help for J, whose Education Health & Care Plan (EHCP) has not been updated since he was in Reception class. “I’m having a nightmare and very likely going to de-register my son because of it, [because] his needs are not being met,” she told us. “The constant fight is getting to me and I just don’t know where to go to get this heard and sorted”.
No longer coping in his mainstream primary school, J has become a target for bullies and Kate believes he needs to be in a special school, but the Local Authority has told her that he does not meet the threshold. J’s SENDCO (teacher in charge of the in-school SEND team) agrees with Kate and has also presented his needs to the Local Authority, who Kate says “aren’t listening”.
At the end of her patience, Kate told us that she is now looking into finding an Educational Psychologist to assess J and hopefully get him the help he needs, but a House of Commons debate on SEND Provision and Funding last month suggests that this may not be any easier.
Held on January 14th, the debate heard from a number of MPs on the Government’s failure to support SEND departments across the country. The presence of Educational Psychologists was raised by John McDonnell, Labour MP for Hayes and Harlington, who pointed out that “88% of local authorities are reporting difficulty in recruitment; 48% are citing pay as a reason”; adding that “this year, for the first time in its history, the Association of Educational Psychologists took industrial action because it was desperate on the issue of pay.”
Pay and funding was a central focus of the debate, with MPs from various wards pointing out that local councils sat on the verge of bankruptcy. The reasons for this are numerous but appear to be partly caused by a growth in the number of privately-run special schools siphoning funding from the public pocket.
The Rise of the Private Sector
Private schools operate outside the Local Authority and are funded independently but, according to a report by the British Educational Research Journal last year, demand for special school placements has so outstripped the number of places available in state special schools, that Local Authorities have had no choice but to place children in private provision. These placements are, according to the National Audit Office, one of the main reasons that Local Authority ‘high-needs’ budgets are so painfully stretched.
Private schools are permitted to run as for-profit enterprises, meaning that there are no laws limiting the amount they can charge in fees. Whilst many private special schools are run by charities, a growing number are not leading them to operate on the same for-profit basis as other private establishments.
Places at state-owned special schools currently cost local authorities between ten and thirty thousand pounds per pupil, per year. Their privately-owned counterparts are charging councils up to three times more than this, sucking money from an already decimated public sector. The government has declined to raise state school SEND funding for the last ten years for reasons unknown, but a deep dive into the owners of the private schools led to some interesting revelations.
For the last few years, private equity companies have been buying up large swathes of the public sector, including care homes, schools and GP surgeries. Special schools appear to be the latest hot property and our investigation has revealed the owners of some companies to be major Tory donors, giving the Conservative party more than a quarter of a million pounds between them.
Sovereign Capital Partners and Octopus Investments are the heaviest hitters, with Sovereign’s CEOs donating £211,844 to the Conservative party between 2008 and 2012.
In 2018 Sir John Nash, founder of Sovereign, was also revealed by openDemocracy to be the sponsor of a number of “free schools” and had previously been made schools minister by Michael Gove. Whilst this sponsorship did not give him ownership of the schools, it did allow total control over their governance. According to Companies House, Sovereign made £2.4 million profit in the last financial year. They did not reply to Byline Times requests to comment.
Octopus Investments have also forged close bonds with the Conservative Party. In 2018, their CEO, Christopher Hulatt, spoke at a Conservative conference arranged by the opaquely-funded Adam Smith Institute. Giving more than £26k to the Tories between 2018 and 2019, they are the main investors in the Aurora Group, which runs 15 special schools across the UK.
A spokesperson for Aurora told Byline Times that the company plays a key role in providing high-quality education, care and support services for people with special educational needs, and that since 2015 they have provided more than 1,000 much-needed places for children, young people and adults.
The spokesperson also confirmed that their CEO Chris Hulatt "made a personal donation of £2,500 to the local association of his constituency MP, Bim Afolami MP, who represents the Conservative Party" but went on to say that Hulatt "is not a member of any political party and attends both Labour and Conservative party conferences. In his role as a co-founder of Octopus Group, Chris engages with politicians from all parties.”
Sovereign Capital had not responded to our request for comment by the time of publication.
Troubling Conservative Attitudes
Attitudes of Conservative MPs towards SEND children are another part of the problem. Selaine Saxby, MP for North Devon, spoke out in the January debate, describing Devon as being “in the middle of a special educational needs pandemic” and said that “we seem to have far too many children being given a label, rather than the help they need to fulfil their potential.”
The idea that the problem lies in growing diagnoses and parents’ desire to “label” their children, was echoed by Councillor Clare Golby at the now-infamous Nuneaton Council meeting and appears to be the basis for many Tory rebuttals to their decade of SEND failures.
Golby’s statement, that parents were “swapping tips” on how to get a diagnosis, does not reflect reality, which is that children in wealthy families were significantly more likely to receive accurate, timely EHCP diagnoses than their poorer peers because parents in wealthier areas tend to be better educated and more aware of what to say on forms to ensure they get the help their child needs.
Byline Times contacted Devon County Council for comment but has, as yet, received no reply. We also reached out to the Department for Education and their spokesperson said:
“Every child deserves to have access to education that meets their needs. Our recent Improvement Plan will reform the support system for children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities, prioritising earlier intervention and creating consistent high standards across the country.
“We are also putting significant investment into the high needs budget, which will have risen by over 60% to £10.5 billion next year since 2019/20.”
Theatre director and parent of a disabled adult child, Stephen Unwin, has written extensively on this subject, comparing the Conservative presentation of disabled people as a burden on the state to the Nazi eugenics programme.
In a recent piece for Byline Times, Unwin noted that part of the problem with council budgets is that parents of disabled children often take them to tribunal to get their children’s cases reviewed. These tribunals are, more often than not, won by the parents and have so far cost Local Authorities more than £92 million in legal fees. Likewise, Unwin has noted that “£66 million of state and private investments held in child trust funds set up for disabled children cannot be accessed by their beneficiaries because they lack ‘capacity’, which also adds to the burden on Local Authority budgets."