Creating opportunities for the disabled

[Guest guest]

Creating opportunities for the disabled

Event offers career and housing help to benefit group often left

unemployed

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/metro/5157130.html

By MELANIE MARKLEY

Hess was on a mission when she went to Saturday's Housing and

Employment Expo for People with Disabilities.

She wanted a job.

Hess, who is blind, has been looking for employment since moving to

Houston 1½ years ago to live closer to family. But she's had no

luck, despite years of experience taking calls for a major hotel

chain in Omaha, Neb.

However, at Saturday's expo, billed as the first of its kind for

Houstonians with disabilities, her luck appeared to be changing.

" I've run into a few prospects, " said Hess, 26, as she and her

father walked past dozens of exhibits featuring businesses with

potential jobs and agencies offering assistance. " It does give me

encouragement that there are people out there who will hire. "

The event at the R. Brown Convention Center drew people with

disabilities who were there to seek help with employment and housing

matters and attend workshops on job readiness, home ownership and

other topics.

The expo was coordinated by the city of Houston, the Texas

Department of Assistive and Rehabilitative Services, WorkSource, and

a host of other agencies.

" This is really an effort to show that people with disabilities are

just citizens like everybody else is, " said Diego Demaya, a legal

specialist with the Southwest ADA Center. " Many of them are

unemployed, regrettably. "

Unemployment among the disabled isn't just a problem in Houston.

According to census statistics compiled by Cornell University, about

38 percent of working-age people with physical or mental

disabilities are employed, compared with roughly 78 percent of

people with no disabilities.

Advocates say that many employers are reluctant to hire people with

disabilities, in part, because they think that making the necessary

accommodations is too much of a hassle.

What's more, Cornell's data show that people with disabilities are

nearly three times as likely to live in poverty as those who aren't

disabled.

ne Bruyere, professor of disability studies at Cornell, said

that even though strides have been made since passage of the federal

Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990, the employment gap

illustrates a continuing problem.

And it's not just the job-seeking people with disabilities who lose

out, she said. Employers who don't hire the disabled are bypassing a

qualified pool of potential employees who can often do the job with

very few modifications in the workplace.

According to an analysis of error rates, he said, blind employees

make no more mistakes typing information into the computer than

sighted people.

" Disabled people in the community are just as able and just as

capable of doing an outstanding job as anyone else and actually, in

some cases, maybe even better, " Rugg said.

Toby Cole may well be a case in point.

Cole, 35, has been paralyzed from the neck down since a diving

accident just after high school graduation 17 years ago. But he went

to college, completed law school and now has a successful practice

as a personal injury attorney.

" There was nothing that was going to stop me, " Cole said, " including

the little pesky problem of being a quadriplegic. "

Before his accident, Cole never planned to be an attorney. His law

career just evolved, he said. Now he represents people, like

himself, who have been injured. Four personal assistants help him

get through his day, getting him up and showered, dressing him,

driving him, even straightening his tie before a court appearance.

Cole hopes others will persevere as well.

" I think the best way to create opportunities, " he said, " is for

people with disabilities to go to work and show the world that

having a disability doesn't stop them from being a great asset to a

company. "

Pam Bullock, who was job-hunting at Saturday's expo, would like

nothing better than to prove just that. She has a master's in social

work and credentials as an honor student. But despite countless

interviews, she's still looking for work after a year.

" I'm kind of at a loss, " said Bullock, who has spina bifida, a

disabling birth defect. " I know I've got the skills that's required

for the job, and then I don't get hired. "