Federal Agency Update

The quarterly meeting of the Courthouse Access Advisory Committee will be held November 17^th and 18^th in San Francisco. The Access Board organized the committee last year to develop design solutions and best practices for ensuring access to courthouses. In addition, the committee is exploring outreach and partnership opportunities for disseminating the information to be developed in order to promote accessible courthouse design.

The Committee has organized subcommittees focused on courtroom access issues, courthouse areas other than courtrooms, and education and outreach. The meeting, which is open to the public, will be held at:
Hiram Johnson State Building
455 Golden Gate Avenue
San Francisco, CA
The first day of the meeting will be from 9:00 am – 5:00 pm and from 9:00 am – 3:00 pm the second day.

For further information, contact the U.S. Access Board at: caac@access–board.gov, 202–272–0026 (Voice), or 202–272–0082 (TTY).

The FHWA is conducting research on the visibility of detectable warnings for people with low vision in order to develop more specific guidance on visual properties, including color, contrast, and reflectance. Specifications for detectable warnings focus on tactile features, but also call for visual contrast between the warning field and the area surrounding it for the benefit of people with low vision. Fifty people with low vision participated in testing the visibility of a variety of detectable warning colors and contrasts. Testing, which was completed in August, was conducted on 13 different colors or markings against the colors of common sidewalk or street materials (concrete, brick, and asphalt).

A report on the study will be available in the upcoming months. For further information, contact Joe Moyer of the FHWA at 202–493–3370 or Email: Joe.Moyer@fhwa.dot.gov.

The EEOC has issued a question–and–answer–style document about a little–known provision of the ADA that protects applicants and employees from discrimination based on their association with people with disabilities. The document is entitled, "Questions and Answers about the Association Provision of the Americans with Disabilities Act".

The second document entitled, "Questions and Answers About Blindness and Vision Impairments in the Workplace and the Americans with Disabilities Act", focuses on issues for employers and individuals that are blind and visually impaired in the employment arena.

This latest Q & A document is the fifth in a series of fact sheets issued by the EEOC for persons with disabilities, and/or focusing on the ADA and specific disability issues.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and its Office on Disability honored seven individuals and organizations from across the country, who are working to empower people with disabilities to lead lives of independence, promise and self determination.

The third annual "Celebrating Persons with Disabilities" helps HHS bring greater national awareness of the abilities of persons with disabilities during October's National Disability Employment Awareness Month. The recipients received the HHS Secretary's Highest Recognition Award for advancing the goals of the Americans with Disabilities Act and President Bush's New Freedom Initiative to eliminate barriers that keep persons with disabilities from participating fully in community life.

The individuals and organizations that were recognized for their work include:

• Governor Robert L. Ehrlich (Governor Maryland)
• Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
• American Academy of Pediatrics (Elk Grove Village, IL)
• Deaf West Theatre (Los Angeles, CA)
• Jayne Greenberg, Ph.D. (Miami, FL)
• William Henderson, Jr., Ed.D. (Dorchester, MA)
• Sound Associates, Inc. (New York, NY)

The DOJ reached a settlement agreement with a developer and several architectural firms in Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin, Virginia, and Nebraska, resolving two lawsuits that alleged disability related housing discrimination. Under the agreement, the developer and architectural firms have agreed to retrofit 49 apartment complexes and pay $1,060,000.

"Following today's agreement, the Justice Department will have facilitated – in 2005 alone – the availability of more than 10,000 newly–accessible housing units to persons with disabilities," said Bradley J. Schlozman, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. "While it is less expensive to make housing accessible in the first place, we are pleased with the defendants' cooperation with the government to reach this agreement, which retrofits nearly 50 apartment complexes."