*** NEW PHONE NUMBER AS OF MAY 2024! ***

(206)379-0753 - BOTH VOICE AND TEXT

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In case you missed the announcement on the home page, there will be NO PERSONAL CONTACTS until further notice.

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Washington Civil & Disability Advocate 

WACDA  is committed to defending civil rights with an emphasis on protecting  persons with disabilities and ensuring accessibility for all.

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GCDE News

Department of Licensing's Fall 2021 Reaching Out newsletter

Dec 28, 2021

Good Morning,

Department of Licensing has been working on implementing legislation to provide Washingtonians the choice to identify disability (deaf/hard of hearing and Developmental Disability) and medical alert on their driver’s license. Please see the email below and link for more information.

Please feel free to share with your advocates, networks, and stakeholders.

Dear colleague,

Our newest edition of DOL’s Reaching Out newsletter is here. In this edition, you will find information about the new disability and medical alert designations for driver licenses and ID cards, resources for Washington residents experiencing homelessness, and much more! As another year comes to an end, we also wanted to take a moment to wish you all the best in 2022!

https://tinyurl.com/2cnmekj8

Best regards,

--

Estimado colega,

Nuestra última edición del boletín Reaching Out del DOL está aquí. En esta edición, encontrará información sobre designaciones de discapacidad y alerta médica para licencias de conducir y tarjetas de identificación, recursos para los residentes de Washington que se encuentran sin hogar, y mucho más! Ahora que llega a su fin otro año, ¡también queríamos tomarnos un momento para desearles todo lo mejor en el 2022!

https://tinyurl.com/4s8cfr9x

Atentamente,

DOL Community Engagement and Outreach Team

https://tinyurl.com/y4hv8sad

Washington State Department of Licensing

Helping every Washington resident live, work, drive, and thrive.

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and the DOL Blog!

Join Outreach LISTSERV® to get the latest updates from DOL’s Outreach team by email.

Thank you for subscribing to the GCDE disability information newsletter.

Stay Connected with Governor's Committee on Disability Issues and Employment:

(The URL at this position contained an error and will never load.)

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Transportation Access for Everyone, Washington State 

The Disability Mobility Initiative at Disability Rights Washington has interviewed over 125 disabled Washington residents from every legislative district in the state about our transportation needs. Those interviews are featured in our transportation access story map

If this link doesn't work, try:

https://bit.ly/2XFpRVw

And you can go here too:

https://www.disabilityrightswa.org/

Also, be sure to follow us on Twitter  https://tinyurl.com/aexrandz for our latest organizing work, and sign up to our email list https://tinyurl.com/jhcnvdww to get a copy of the research paper.

See you soon!

-- Disability Mobility Initiative

We believe every community should have reliable, accessible transit and the infrastructure we need to safely roll and walk on our streets, and that every one of us should be able to move in our communities without fear of harassment or police violence.

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Television closed captioning in places of public accommodation

Pursuant to SB 5027 concerning closed captioning on televisions in places of public accommodation, the Washington State Human Rights Commission has created a guidance paper in a question and answer format to help answer questions about this new requirement for televisions in places of public accommodation to have closed captioning.  We have also put this same information into a PowerPoint format that business owners can utilize to train their employees on these requirements. 

This law goes into effect on July 25, 2021, and businesses must be in compliance by October 23, 2021.

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GCDE News

COVID Homebound Vaccinations Services

Good afternoon GCDE & Partners! We hope this finds you well.

We're reaching out to share information we received from the Department of Health (DOH) about COVID homebound vaccination services. Please refer to newsletter linked below for further details. Please share freely with your networks as well.

DOH Homebound Service Access Newsletter 21 APR.pdf

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GCDE News

$2.25 Million Fund Available in Justice Department Settlement with Amtrak

Amtrak is accepting claims for monetary compensation for people with mobility disabilities who traveled or wanted to travel from or to one of 78 stations and encountered accessibility issues. Claims must be submitted by May 29, 2021. On December 2, 2020, the Department of Justice and Amtrak entered into an agreement that Amtrak will fix its inaccessible stations and pay $2.25 million to victims hurt by inaccessibility at 78 stations. To read the full press release about the Fund, please click here.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/225-million-fund-available-justice-department-settlement-amtrak?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery

For more information on the ADA or this settlement, please visit ADA.gov or call the toll-free ADA Information Line at 800-514-0301 (TTY 800-514-0383).

https://www.ada.gov/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery

Read All About It

Our newsletter helps you stay up to date with major wins and cases from our office, important updates in disability law and policy in Washington state and beyond, and provides engaging commentary from our staff and attorneys on the front lines.

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https://billyfootwear.com/
Good for disableds and they offer two different-sized pairs for different-sized feet.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000kmj4/episodes/guide
Three half-hour BBC audio episodes by a British woman with MD, doing a verbal diary of her days and experiences.

As with all people, we the disabled enjoy our creature comforts. DAHRT exists to aid our journey.

The following are teaching pages to help one learn American Sign Language (ASL):

http://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/lessons/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ianCxd71xIo

http://www.aslpro.com/cgi-bin/aslpro/aslpro.cgi

https://www.aslmeredith.com/

There are many other sites that teach ASL. All you have to do is enter "American Sign Language" or "ASL" (without the quotes) into any search engine.

How to sign 'Black lives matter'.

 The phrase begins with four fingers cut across the brow, followed by two  thumbs drawn up like breath from navel to chest, ending with a fierce  tug with two hands down from the chin into fists toward the heart. 

 There are two different signs for BLACK when referring to people.

 This L.A. Times article shows them to you 

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-06-08/how-do-you-sign-black-lives-matter-in-asl-for-black-deaf-angelenos-its-complicated