Adaptive rowing helps those with disabilities to stay active | WTNH

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The scenic Connecticut River awakens the inner outdoorsman in just about everyone, and there is plenty of fun to be had at the Riverfront Boathouse at Riverside Park.

It’s there that the Connecticut Adaptive Rowing Program is being held. People like Shellie Cyr and Joe Damon enjoy the challenge adaptive rowing presents.“It gets you back to nature, you just enjoy being out on the river, also I learned a lot from other rowers,” Damon said.

via Adaptive rowing helps those with disabilities to stay active | WTNH.

98 Homeless People Win “Golden Tickets” | New Haven Independent

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Riding on a city bus, Cynthia Keller got a phone call. She started weeping. After four years of homelessness, she learned she would finally have a place of her own.

The phone call announcing a “golden ticket”—or housing voucher—came thanks to a massive coordinated push by a network of city homelessness agencies.

Keller and 97 other homeless people have received golden tickets of their own, as part of the city’s “100-day challenge” to house 75 percent of the city’s chronically homeless. Of those 98, 26 have already been housed.

As the clock winds down to the July 30 challenge deadline, homelessness agencies are pushing to meet the goal of 107 people housed. With the help of staff at the Columbus House, and with her voucher in hand, Keller (pictured above) is looking at apartments and aims to move in as soon as possible.

For more on this story, visit: 98 Homeless People Win “Golden Tickets” | New Haven Independent.

Novel ‘Say What You Will’ Draws Inspiration From Teens With Disabilities | Here & Now

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When author Cammie McGovern’s oldest son was diagnosed with autism, she looked for an outlet where he could be with other children with similar difficulties. That led her to form the group “Whole Children,” an after-school and weekend program for children with disabilities.

Now, a decade later, those kids spurred her to write the new young adult novel “Say What You Will” (excerpt below).

“Having been surrounded by all these terrific teens with disabilities and seeing how much they wanted relationships and love as much as their typically developing peers, it felt like time to write a story about that,” McGovern told Here & Now’s Robin Young.

“Say What You Will” tells the story of two teens: Amy, a girl with cerebral palsy, and Matt, a young man with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), whose friendship becomes complicated by romantic and sexual feelings.

For more on this story, visit: YA Novel ‘Say What You Will’ Draws Inspiration From Teens With Disabilities | Here & Now.

Letter to the Editor: A livable community requires accessibility

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Editor’s note: This letter ran in the June 2 edition of the Register.

A ‘livable community’ requires accessibility

If persons with disabilities were in the mind of the general population, sidewalks and access routes would not be obstructed by vehicles; sidewalks would be cleared of snow; advertising signs, merchandise, and benches would not block our way.

Last Wednesday, it began raining on my way home after dining with live music downtown. A half-block from home, a vehicle parked on the sidewalk blocked my way. Since power wheelchairs can’t jump off sidewalks, I turned back. Eventually finding a safe driveway, I rode in the street.

Two days later brand new mailboxes were installed for the apartment complex I live in. Very pretty but inaccessible to us tenants who use wheelchairs.

For more on this story, visit: Letter to the Editor: A livable community requires accessibility

Milford man says disability no barrier to fatherhood

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Manuel Silva has not let being a quadriplegic stop him from living life to the fullest and becoming a great dad.

He and his wife, Kristine, said they are too busy raising their two boys, Jason, 14, and Daniel (Danny), 11, to let anything get in their way.

Manny and Kris Silva were high school sweethearts. The couple met in 1986 when Manny Silva was attending Platt Technical High School and his future wife was a student at Foran High School, both in Milford.

They married in 1992, and the following year he was seriously injured in a motor vehicle accident that left him paralyzed from the chest down. Soon thereafter, he lost his job at a New Haven architectural firm where he had worked for four years. He declined to give a reason, but said it helped him chart a new course in life.

“I was inspired to start my own design firm specializing in accessibility for the disabled,” Silva said.

Silva turns 46 Saturday.

For more on this story, visit: Milford man says disability no barrier to fatherhood | New Haven Register

Center for Disability Rights prepares for Wheel-A-Thon

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The executive director of the Center for Disability Rights said Tuesday the nonprofit raises “thousands of dollars” for scholarships each September at its annual Wheel-A-Thon.

Marc Anthony Gallucci said proceeds from the event held along the shoreline “is real money to be used to pursue the (mission) of the center.”

Gallucci addressed the nonprofit’s 26th annual meeting. More than 60 people attended the dinner at Savin Rock Conference Center.

“We really want to increase participation in the Wheel-A-Thon this year,” Gallucci said. It will be the ninth annual event.

via Center for Disability Rights prepares for Wheel-A-Thon.

Human Services Committee of the City of New Haven Board of Alders to address MyRide increase 6 p.m. June 26

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The New Haven Board of Alders will be urging Gov. Dannell P. Malloy, the state legislature and the Greater New Haven Transit District Administrator to rescind or reduce the rate increase imposed on seniors who depend on transportation from MyRide and calling for a public hearing to discuss the impact of such an onerous rate hike.

City of New Haven Meeting Agenda
165 Church Street
New Haven, CT 06510
(203) 946 6483 (phone)
(203) 946 7476 (fax)

cityofnewhaven.com

Aldermanic Chambers
6:00 PM
Thursday, June 26, 2014
BOARD OF ALDERS NOTICE NEW HAVEN
The Human Services Committee of the Board of Alders will hold a public hearing at 6 p.m. on Thursday, June 25 in the Alders Chamber of City Hall,165 Church St., re:

(1) From Alder Brackeen, a resolution of the New Haven Board of Alders urging Governor Malloy, the state legislature and the Greater New Haven Transit District Administrator to rescind or reduce the rate increase imposed on seniors who depend on transportation from “MyRide” and calling for a public hearing to discuss the impact of such an onerous rate hike.

THE FOLLOWING ITEMS ARE POSTED FOR COMMITTEE ACTION ONLY PUBLIC COMMENT HAS BEEN CONCLUDED.

(2) Resolution authorizing the Mayor of the City of New Haven to submit an application to the Agency of Aging of South Central Connecticut for a project titled Cancer Awareness and Prevention. (FAVORABLE)

(3) From the Peace Commission, submitting a resolution on behalf of Dominicans of Haitian descent that have been stripped of their citizenship, urging a boycott of all businesses in, tourism of, and products from the Dominican Republic until the citizenship rights of the Dominicans of Haitian descent have been fully restored. (FAVORABLE AS AMENDED)

(4) Resolution authorizing the Mayor of the City of New Haven to apply for and accept the Asthma Initiative Grant award in the amount of $528,907 from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and to execute, acknowledge, implement and deliver any and all documents as may be considered necessary or appropriate with respect thereto. (LEAVE TO WITHDRAW)

These items are on file and available for public inspection in the Office of the City Clerk, Room 202, 200 Orange Street, New Haven. Per order: Hon. Santiago Berrios Bones, Chair; attest: Michael B. Smart, City Clerk.

For a disability related accommodation, please call (203) 946 7833 (V) or (203) 946 8582 (TTY) at least one business day prior to the meeting.

Set To Celebrate Returns For Fourth Year | Hartford Courant

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Proceeds will benefit development of a new, fully handicap-accessible Heritage Rose Garden at Elizabeth Park, Hartford and other Connecticut Valley Garden Club projects. Past garden club projects have included Sunrise Overlook at Elizabeth Park, the Hill-Stead Museum Sunken Garden with Garden Club of Hartford and the Connecticut Children’s Medical Center topiary garden.

via Set To Celebrate Returns For Fourth Year – Hartford Courant.

Op-Ed: Mental health and front page news – getting it right | The CT Mirror

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May is “National Mental Health Awareness Month.”  Across the country organizations will work to raise awareness in an effort to reduce stigma.Yet, each day the front pages of Connecticut’s newspapers are likely to report new incidents of tragic violence of one person toward another.  Some will tell the story of the horrible crescendo of long-standing strife within a struggling family.  Other news will give the latest examples of violence in the community that is random, where the victims, anonymous to the perpetrator, were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

For more on this story, visit: Op-Ed: Mental health and front page news – getting it right | The CT Mirror.

Seymour gets $200K grant to help make sidewalks compliant with ADA

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The town will receive a $200,000 boost from the state to make several deteriorating sidewalks around town handicapped accessible.

First Selectman Kurt Miller said the $200,000 Small Town Economic Assistance Program, or STEAP, grant, will enable the town to continue its ongoing program of repairing badly cracked and heaved-up sidewalks.

Phase Four of Seymour’s Sidewalk Replacement Project, and making them ADA (Americans with Disabilities) compliant, will include sidewalks on Pearl and Roberts streets and Washington Avenue. Repairs are slated to be done this fall.

Resident Joseph Luciano, who chairs the Livable Communities Committee, has been advocating hard for improvements to downtown sidewalks. Luciano relies on a motorized wheelchair for mobility following a stroke in 2006. He has encountered numerous troublesome spots around town that prevents him from getting where he needs to go. Luciano said the state money should be used elsewhere, “because property owners should have done the work.”

For more on this story, visit: Seymour gets $200K grant to help make sidewalks compliant with ADA.