Welcome to
the Cross Disability Coalition

Hello! We are Christina Battista and Tanja Blicker-Ucran, Co-Coordinators of the Cross Disability Coalition, and we would like to welcome you to The Cross Disability Coalition Website. The Coalition started in September of 2009 with assistance from the Council's Systems Advocacy Committee. The Coalition is for individuals with all disabilities to connect and talk about what is important in our lives and what we can do together to improve quality for all people! It is also an opportunity to become familiar with different services available from agencies in Rhode Island and learn what these agencies can do to support and meet the needs of individuals.

Please take a moment to browse our website and check out some of the helpful links we have provided. Come join us at one of our next meetings where you can meet new people, share your ideas, opinions, and concerns.

Thank you, and we look forward to meeting you!

Click here to see our mission and priority issue areas.

Click here to see what people are saying about employment!

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News

Accessible Taxi Cabs Coming to RI

4.4.12

Read more about accessible taxi cabs and find out how to call for a ride.

"Get Off Your Knees" Video by John Robinson

10.4.2011

Anna Liebenow: Please don't let Medicaid abandon me

9.23.2011

from ProJo: 01:00 AM EDT on Saturday, July 30, 2011

By Anna Liebenow

You never know what obstacles life is going to put in front of you.

When I was 25, I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Before I turned 30, I was using a wheelchair. When you have a disability, it takes a fair amount of creativity to make life work. Like millions of other Americans with disabilities, I found a way. I continued to work, volunteer and live my life.

After a few years, my MS progressed to the point where I could no longer get in and out of the wheelchair on my own. I was still the same person and still wanted to contribute something. But without help transferring from my bed to my wheelchair, I couldn't even get out the door. The world beyond my bedroom would be lost to me, and all I have to offer the world would go to waste.

Fortunately, Medicaid gives me the missing piece I need to make my life work. An aide comes twice a day to help get me into and out of my wheelchair. This doesn't just make a difference in my life: It makes the life I have possible. I work at an independent-living center and I volunteer with organizations that serve people with disabilities. The assistance I get means I can help others live meaningful and more independent lives.

For me, a meaningful life includes contributing to my community.

Recently, I was appointed to serve on the board of the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority. Many people with disabilities, seniors and others would be unable to get to work or to their doctors without public transit. Without Medicaid, I wouldn't even be able to leave my home to get to a board meeting. I think that says it all.

Medicaid also helps me buy medications that control my MS. Without Medicaid, I could not afford my medications, treatments or specialized wheelchair. No amount of creativity or effort would be enough to make my life work if I lost that care. In fact, I might be forced to live in a nursing home, which would not only take away my quality of life, it would cost the taxpayers more than the help I now receive.

As I said, you never know what kind of obstacles life will throw into your path. Our country faces the greatest economic challenges of my lifetime. Life has gotten much harder for millions of people. I know what that's like. People are making sacrifices to make life work, and I know what that's like, too. Lawmakers in Washington are now negotiating a debt-reduction deal that will likely include massive cuts in federal spending. Medicaid as we know it is at risk, and some proposals would gut the program. To put it bluntly: Cutting Medicaid would end the life I know. Taking away my benefits amounts to telling me that our government does not value the contributions I make. That would be wrong, and I don't believe it's what Americans want our government to do.

I am not a policymaker but I do know that slashing the kinds of benefits I rely upon is bad policy. Medicaid makes sense because it helps people live up to their potential. Ending the opportunities it provides is bad policy.

Not every American has as much at stake in this discussion as I do, but we should all be concerned about the future of Medicaid. In America, we recognize each person's potential to contribute. When a person is working hard to overcome a roadblock, we don't throw another one up in her way.

Our elected leaders need to hear that cutting Medicaid is not what we need, and goes against everything that we are. I am the face of Medicaid: a woman who is not ready to give up on herself and is asking the government not to give up on her.

Anna Liebenow is a member of the American Association of People with Disabilities and a disability-rights leader in Rhode Island. This came via American Forum.

URI Students Engineer Better Adaptive Devices for Coalition Member

8.21.2011

Rebecca Beaton, a member of the Cross Disability Coalition, received help from URI engineering students. She was fitted with a customized assistive device designed by URI student that will enable her to operate a computer, draw, paint anduse an iPad.

Read the full article or watch a video about the project below.

RIPTA to Add Wheelchair-Accessible Taxis

5.7.2011

The Rhode Island Public Transit Authority will buy the state's first taxicabs accessible to wheelchair users and hopes to have them on the road by the fall, an official said Thursday.

Advocates for the handicapped said the cabs will fill a major, perhaps the state's largest, hole in accessible transportation.

"It's a huge gap," said Lorna Ritchie, the executive director of the Ocean State Center for Independent Living. She said her organization regularly gets calls from people who can afford conventional cabs, but can't use them because they can't accommodate wheelchairs...

Read the full article from the Providence Journal.

A Wake-Up Call to Action:
RI's Transportation Funding Crisis

3.28.2011

A forum to discuss the problems facing our public transportation system is being held at the RI Convention Center on April 6, 2011 from 1-3 pm. Anyone interested in going should RSVP to John Flaherty at jflaherty@growsmartri.com by March 31st.

Cross Disability Coalition Writes Letter to Governor Chafee

1.26.2011

Click here to read the letter to Governor Chafee.

The New Cross Disability Site

6.15.2010

The Cross Disability Coalition unveiled its new website at the meeting today.