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The Accessible Virtual Community

Government and Utilities

Illustration represents government and utilities section of virtual community.

Legal issues are abundant in terms of compliance of government institutions with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Learn about the law here, but also consider UD approaches to go beyond the law in areas such as procurement, website accessibility, parking lot accessibility, forms and materials or emergency preparedness. In adddition to the resources on this page, to search for more related information, you can go to our Search Page.

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A Best Practices Review of Local E-Government Services

This summary report describes a review conducted to determine the extent to which local governments in Wisconsin have developed e-government to deliver information and services electronically via the Internet.

Wisconsin Legislative Audit Bureau

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Accessibility for Victorians (Australia)

This pdf document maps a timeline for a city to implement universal design principles in 15 years; in this case in Victoria, Australia. It looks briefly at the demographic of people with disabilities and states ten accessibility guiding principles and thirty strategic recommendations that can be implemented city-wide for all the citizens.

Disability Advisory Council of Victoria

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Accessibility Requirements for Buildings

This article by the U.S. Department of Housing provides information on the housing accessibility requirements for both private and federally assisted housing.

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development

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Accessible Design for Commercial and Industrial Buildings

This short article discusses the importance of implementing the laws and requirements stated by ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) when building a commercial or industrial building. The short term and long term benefits of creating a building with universal design features are also explained.

BNET

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ADA Best Practices Tool Kit for State and Local Governments

"The Tool Kit is designed to teach state and local government officials how to identify and fix problems that prevent people with disabilities from gaining equal access to state and local government programs, services, and activities. It will also teach state and local officials how to conduct accessibility surveys of their buildings and facilities to identify and remove architectural barriers to access."

US Department of Justice

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ADA National Network Conference Proceedings 2010  (Research based)

This pdf document includes proceedings from the May 3-4, 2010, Alexandria, Virginia conference, with representative researchers from the ADA National Network presented findings on issues related to the ADA.

ADA National DBTAC Network

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Americans with Disabilities Act and City Governments: Common Problems

This website explains the requirements of state and local governments for making all of civic life accessible to persons with disabilities.

U.S. Department of Justice

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Automated Doors: Towards Universal  (Research based)

This article reports on research completed as part of a contract from the U.S. Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board. The goals of the project were to complete a state of the art review on the subject of automated doors and develop recommendations for revising the ADA Accessibility Guidelines (ADAAG) in light of the findings. These recommendations address both scoping criteria when and if automated doors should be required, and technical criteria how they should be designed if they are used in buildings.

The Center for Inclusive Design and Environmental Access

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Disability Preparedness

This site offers a way to find disability specific preparedness information in the event of an emergency. This site also offers links to websites with more general informtion.

US governemnt

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Disability Statistics

These Annual Disability Status Reports provide policy makers, disability advocates, reporters, and the public with a summary of the most recent demographic and economic statistics on the non-institutionalized population with disabilities. They contain information on the population size and disability prevalence for various demographic subpopulations, as well as statistics related to employment, earnings, and household income. Comparisons are made to people without disabilities and across disability types. Disability Status Reports and other statistics are available for each state, DC, and Puerto Rico at www.DisabilityStatistics.org.

Employment and Disability Institute, Cornell University

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Employers' Guide to Including Employees with Disabilities in Emergency Evacuation Plans

This web page guide includes emergency evacuation plans, including how to include employees with disabilities in such plans. Links are available to a checklist and resources. If employers covered by the ADA opt to have such plans they are required to include people with disabilities. Further, employers who do not have emergency evacuation plans may nonetheless have to address emergency evacuation for employees with disabilities as a reasonable accommodation under Title I of the ADA. In addition, employers in certain industries may have obligations to develop emergency evacuation plans under the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH Act) or under state and local law.

Job Accommodation Network (JAN)

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Evacuation Preparedness Guide for People with Disabilities and Other Activity Limitations

Comprehensive guide to emergency preparedness for people with disabilities. "This guide focuses on people with disabilities and activity limitations successfully evacuating buildings. It's goal is to help you strengthen your evacuation preparedness."

Center for Disability Issues and the Health Professions

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The Americans with Disabilities Act Checklist for Readily Achievable Barrier Removal

This checklist (1995) will help you identify accessibility problems and solutions in existing facilities in order to meet your obligations under the ADA, however may be outdated with regard to specific updates in the law.

Barrier Free Environments, Inc. and Adaptive Environments Center, Inc.

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Twelve Considerations for Accessible Emergency Communications

This website provides things to consider "to meet the distinctive needs of people with disabilities (PWD) during an emergency."

RERC on Mobile Wireless Technologies

It took me several years of struggling with the heavy door to my building, sometimes having to wait until a person stronger came along, to realize that the door was an accessibility problem, not only for me, but for others as well. And I did not notice, until one of my students pointed it out, that the lack of signs that could be read from a distance at my university forced people with mobility impairments to expend a lot of energy unnecessarily, searching for rooms and offices. Although I have encountered this difficulty myself on days when walking was exhausting to me, I interpreted it, automatically, as a problem arising from my illness (as I did with the door), rather than as a problem arising from the built environment having been created for too narrow a range of people and situations.

Susan Wendell, author of
The Rejected Body: Feminist Philosophical Reflections on Disability