Disability rights advocates on Tuesday asked Toledo City Council to adopt a disability-justice framework for city leaders to use whenever they develop or review a city policy.
Councilman Sam Melden, who works as director of strategic engagement for The Ability Center of Greater Toledo, introduced the resolution to commit to use the “Five I’s of Disability Justice” during council’s agenda review meeting. He said he came up with the framework while completing his capstone project for his master’s degree from the University of Toledo, with input from the Toledo-Lucas County Commission on Disabilities.
The five I’s are involvement, independence, inclusion, implementation, and intersectionality.
He hopes it will help lawmakers ensure policies are beneficial to people with disabilities in the community.
“There is often a disconnect between the disability community and elected leadership,” Mr. Melden said. “I’m not trying to place fault. There seemed to me to be an opportunity to allow the policies coming from this body to be more demonstrably beneficial to the folks with disabilities in our community.”
Katie Hunt Thomas, an Ability Center attorney and disabilities commission member, said she hopes city leaders will treat the five I’s like a checklist. Have they involved someone with a disability in the discussions? Does the policy promote independence and contribute to inclusion? Can it be implemented effectively? Does it intersect with any other marginalized groups?
“Getting in front of a situation rather than reacting to it from behind is really important,” Ms. Hunt Thomas said.
Shannon Seger, director of the Deaf Services Center of Northwest Ohio, gave an example Tuesday to illustrate why it’s essential to involve people with disabilities at the beginning of a policy change or the development of a new program.
“The Huntington Center and Fifth Third Field — they were not very friendly for those with hearing loss at all,” she said. “It ended up costing a lot more money to be able to fix it, to add the captions on the field and around the rink.”
Another example the commission has brought up before is the ToleGo bicycle sharing program. It was rolled out in late 2018 without any bicycles accessible to those with disabilities, and the Kapszukiewicz administration is now working to fix it.
Had there been a disability-justice framework in place, advocates said, perhaps the issue could have been avoided.
Mr. Melden said he is not calling for an immediate vote on the Five I’s framework because he wants to have more city council discussion. He expects a vote in about a month.
Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz in February announced the formation of an Office on Disabilities, a step he said should ensure Toledoans living with disabilities will always have a seat at the table. The office will be housed on the 19th floor of downtown’s One Government Center and have a starting budget of $100,000.
The administration plans to hire a director for the office, but the job description still is being finalized, Mr. Melden said.
First Published April 6, 2021, 10:19 p.m.
