The Business Community and the ACCESS Program

I received an email from Kelly the other day, and she was looking for assistance in wanting to educate the business community about their building compliance with the ADA.  I told Kelly this is a very noble role for the disabled and that there have been many who have fought the good fight for the last 20 years.

The business community knows about the ADA and we see spots of building ADA compliance all over this country, but we see very little buildings that are completely ADA compliance.  In the opinion of ACCESS, building owners do not want to spend the money today unless they get caught with an ADA Civil Rights violation by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), the government agency responsible for enforcing the ADA.  Because the ADA is Civil Rights Law, there are advocacy groups also enforcing building ADA compliance.  The professional accessibility architects at ACCESS for the last 19 years have specialized in building ADA compliance, so we know this landscape very well, and have become very concerned about the plight of the disabled.  ACCESS was reformatted a year ago to bring our professional accessibility architects directly to the wheelchair user and we call this program "Watchdogs in Wheelchairs".  This program for the disabled uses the free Federal Courts, where the attorney costs and fees are free to the disabled.  The professional accessibility work product of ACCESS is also an attorney cost; therefore, also free to the disabled. 

Our ACCESS program is simple and takes little time.  Today we are focusing on the lodging industry (hotels, motels and time-shares).  There are four easy steps to the program listed as follows:

1. Book an accessible room with two beds and a roll-in shower.
2. Take 5 to 6 photos of the room, the roll-in shower, the lobby area and public restrooms.
3. Take 5 to 6 pictures outside of the building to include the accessible parking and overall photos of the building.
4. Email us the photos and a copy of your hotel bill (all person information may be removed with the exception of your name and date of visit) to hfalstad@accessts.net.

Once we recieve the photos and the copy of the bill our in-house Legal Counsel will determine whether there is standing for filing through the Federal Courts.  That's it.  We will handle the rest and keep you updated throughout the process in filing at the Federal Courts.  Our in-house Legal Counsel has confirmed that there is a good possibility that the Federal Judge will award funds for filing the ADA building non-compliant complaint.  This is your ADA Civil Rights program teaming with ACCESS for results. 

Call us.  You may be surprise on how easy it really is.  Some people, like Kelly, find the program so much to their liking that we get many inquiries of how they want to start their own "Watchdogs in Wheelchairs" chapter, which we happily support.

Roll-In Shower

Lobby Area

Accessible Room

Public Restroom

Parking Lot with Accessible Parking

Let us know your thoughts and leave a comment here, or on our FaceBook page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Access-Technologies-Services-Inc/268659564730.  You can also contact us at hfalstad@accessts.net or call us at (702) 649-7575.


Hank