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ages and the hiring of a trained therapeutic specialist to guide these

activities

Instigated installation of a lift in Town swimming facilities to en

courage physical activities

Developed a complete study of all public buildings, to remove all archi

tectural barriers, chairing the committee which brought all school

buildings into compliance

Convinced appropriate Town agencies to install a TTY (teletype for the
deaf) in the Police Division, sign language courses in Adult Education,
"Be Me for a Day" Townwide awareness programs, a "hot line" for handi-
capped directly to the Social Services Department, ramping Town intersections
with UMTA turnback funds, special historic tours for the handicapped, a
"How To Do It Kit" used internationally.

Tom Lasher's contributions are legion and legend. More than all else by his own example, he exemplifies volunteerism in the field of health and catalyzes others

to follow.

Where do we go from here?

No community can depend exclusively and indefinitely on a nucleus of volunteers or on one man. The time has come to institutionalize the efforts of our tireless

citizen workers. We must begin to plan hiring local coordinators who will have responsibility over all activities related to the needs of the handicapped, including accessibility, employment, housing, education and recreation.

What role should State and Federal governments play in the future?

I appear before you to ask that you begin to help by funding a "demonstration program" which will provide money needed to hire local coordinators for handicapped

services; to implement local objectives.

Include elements that show efforts to

work with High School students, training them for specifically identified employment tasks. This will enhance their opportunities for employment. Encourage development of Job Banks through local Chambers of Commerce and industries.

Additional funds are needed desperately for rehabilitation services. We need greater, more intensive staff coverage from Departments of Vocational Rehabilitation, employment counselors and wider publicity for Departments of Vocational Rehabilitation services. And, of course, we need money for housing.

Our Town has gone to the well more often than most, but even our source of supply has almost disappeared. We look to you to help us. We cannot accomplish

further improvements for the disabled on our own. Our past achievements are unique but local and national needs for the disabled have not decreased.

In a working partnership with you, we can prevail. The fate of millions of potentially productive handicapped citizens lies in your hands. We, in local government, believe you will not fail us now. Together we will make this truly the "Decade of the Disabled".

Mr. YATRON. Thank you very much, Mayor Aldridge, for your helpful statement. We want to wish you continued success in Wethersfield, Conn., both you and the people you represent.

I want to thank each of the panel members for your contributions here today. I have no questions, but perhaps Congressman Winn may have a question.

Mr. WINN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First I want to congratulate Wethersfield, Conn., for their fine constructive program and for your community achievement award. I might say that, if it has not already been furnished to the members of the Connecticut delegation, we would hope they would include most of your remarks in the Congressional Record. That might set an example for many other cities in the country.

Mr. ALDRIDGE. Thank you.

Mr. WINN. Second, I want to commend all the panel for a very fine presentation.

Alan, I would like to ask you, since there is no annual report to Congress on the disabled issues, maybe we should add to the resolution language a requirement for a report on progress toward implementation of the decade's goals. Such a report might serve as a useful benchmark for all committees with jurisdiction over these programs.

Do you have any comment on that?

Mr. REICH. Congressman, I think that is an excellent idea, because we could lay out specific program goals for each year and then report back and get comment and review. If this would be your desire, I would be happy to make arrangements for this.

But I should say that it would really have to be a partnership effort of the Government and the private sector working together, and I think we have already, through the cooperation of our three witnesses here today from the Federal Government, the beginning of a good joint effort that would enable us to meet that requirement very well.

Mr. WINN. Well, I think it is something we might well want to consider, and maybe something that we have overlooked. It may be too cumbersome, but I do not believe so. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. YATRON. Thank you, Mr. Winn.

We thank the gentlemen for being here.

Would Dr. Bowe, Dr. Robbins, Mr. Broshar, Mr. Russell, and Ms. McKnew please come to the witness table as the next group of panelists.

Before we begin, I wanted to note that many of the people in the audience today are disabled. I would like to ask you folks, How is the Congress doing in making our own buildings accessible here in Washington? If you have had a problem, please write or call our subcommittee so that we can let the architect of the Capitol know about your concerns.

Thank you.

Welcome to all of you. Our first witness in this panel is Dr. Frank Bowe, former executive director of the American Coalition of Citizens With Disabilities and author of a dozen books on rehabilitation and disability. Dr. Bowe.

STATEMENT OF FRANK BOWE, FORMER EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, AMERICAN COALITION OF CITIZENS WITH DISABILITIES

Mr. Bowe. Thank you. It is a pleasure for me to be with you as a fellow Pennsylvanian and also with Mr. Winn. I am enjoying the opportunity. I do hope you can understand me.

Are you doing all right?

The REPORTER. Fine, thank you.

Mr. Bowe. You have heard a lot today, so if it is your pleasure I would like my written testimony inserted into the record.

Mr. YATRON. Without objection, that would be most helpful.

Mr. Bowe. To summarize it briefly, if that would be satisfactory, we are looking at a decade, 10 years perhaps, in planning. Anything we might do as a country, we should first ask: "Where will we be in 1992?"

Everywhere we look, we are seeing several things that are expected to happen. First, we will have completed most of the transfer from an industrial society to an information society. Second, we will have increased very greatly the amount of money from Government that will be going to public assistance, to people who will not be working in that information society.

We must state: "What are the decisions that we must take between now and 1992 to insure that 35 some-odd millions of people will not be left out of the mainstream of our society by 1992?”

It is possible that with current technology we can use the telephone and the computer to enable anybody to work from anywhere with anyone else anywhere. The immediate implication is that people with severe disabilities and older Americans can work from the home. By 1992 it probably will not be necessary for many workers to commute at all. The technology to facilitate that is already available.

However, we have not said: "What do we need to do to encourage industry to make the hardware and software accessible?" We have spent a lot of time and many billions of dollars creating architecture and transportation for Americans, and only after it was all over did we say: "It is not accessible." We then had to spend large sums of money in an effort, which is still ongoing to try to renovate to make them accessible. With transportation, we will probably fail. With architecture, we are getting there.

It makes no sense for us, knowing we are moving to an information age, to repeat exactly the same mistake.

It is also possible, using current technology, to allow someone who cannot see or who cannot read because of a learning disability, to understand anything that a computer prints out, because we have technology that reads out loud anything on the computer screen. The price of that technology is currently about $200 or $250. We are not talking large sums of money.

People I have been working with in private industry tell me that within 5 years they expect "voice input" technology to be feasible. Fundamentally, that means that someone who cannot hear or has a learning disability that prevents the understanding of what is spoken will not have to hear any more; that you will have a computer capable of understanding and printing out in real time what is said.

This whole area has not been guided by any national policy. We have no incentives, no deductions, no tax allowances, on the producer side, on the distribution side, on the education side. There is no demand and there is no supply, philosophy, theory, or even concept on the national level to guide all of that effort.

Second, we are going to need to address very, very quickly the entire issue raised by the current administration's effort to "review" the social security disability program. Now, I had the fortune of participating in some of that legislation over the last several years. I am looking to the Congress to affirm that the current review process is not what Congress had intended.

Still, we have not had any such declaration out of this Congress. Until this Congress decides whether it wants people with disabilities to work if they can or it wants them to be protected if they cannot. Until Congress says, clearly, that it is not going to try to circumvent their efforts to work if they can or be protected if they cannot, we will not have a rational policy.

I think that the program that we develop ultimately will have to include, as well, something along the lines of a full reauthorization of the basic legislation now on the books. The Education for Handicapped Children Act, and the Rehabilitation Act will come up for reauthorization very, very soon.

These processes already have begun. We have got to incorporate those laws as kind of a basis of the national plan we make.

I want to conclude by saying that what little participation I have in the United Nations in the international year and in the United States to implement has shown me that the mere declaration of the year or now of the decade by itself is absolutely and totally meaningless. The United Nations has not committed any money or staffed up any program to implement the decade. No nation is forced or told or otherwise presented with a need to do anything. It is entirely and completely and totally up to those of us in the public and private sectors within this country to decide that we will do something.

However, having said that, I have seen, and I do want to reaffirm this very strongly, that the mere fact that we are getting together talking about it on a national and international basis does produce some very salutary benefits.

I can remember the first international meeting we held in the United Nations to plan the international year. I remember very vividly those very, very first sessions, because I was the only person from all of the nations in the United Nations system who was the head of a delegation from his country and who was disabled.

At the second meeting I was very pleased to see that the No. 2 person in two delegations from two other countries was disabled. We gradually moved on and now we have in the planning of this decade a number of people, heads of delegations, not just seconds, who are disabled people. It finally has become indeed an effort of disabled persons. For many of the nations of the world, that was one tremendous step forward.

I think with this decade we can move even further. Thank you. [Mr. Bowe's prepared statement follows:]

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