Activist launches accessibility audit of businesses; posts results online : WaterLoo

Accessibility audit

David Bebee,Record staff

Nick Wendler has experienced the challenges of getting around Waterloo in a wheelchair for years. Many businesses in the uptown have stairs that make it impossible for him to enter their stores without assistance. The owners of Nick & Nat's Uptown 21 have purchased a removable ramp to make their restaurant more accessible.

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Lyn McGinnis is an able-bodied person fighting to open doors for people with disabilities.

McGinnis recently audited 100 downtown Waterloo businesses to see how many were accessible to people using wheelchairs.

He discovered more than half of the establishments are hard to enter and 43 completely inaccessible.

McGinnis took photos of the businesses and set up a Facebook page he graded them from A++ to F.

He rated two A++, 11 A+, 32 at B, 12 at C and gave 43 Fs.

For McGinnis, it all started earlier this summer when he went out for dinner with a friend who uses a wheelchair. Afterwards, they decided to go for a "walk" down King Street.

It was an eye-opener for him. His friend, Carmen Sutherland, couldn't enter any buildings that had steps in front of them — even one step was a barrier.

McGinnis realized, "Oh, she can't go in here, she can't go in here … Being with Carmen, really she couldn't go into half of these places. For her, this is normal."

McGinnis didn't think it was right. He got together with a few people and they formed the Waterloo Accessibility Watch. That's when he decided to do the audit to raise awareness and put the results on Facebook.

McGinnis realizes many of the businesses rent space and that the real authority to make changes lies with the landlords or owners. But he hopes the audit is a first step toward changing attitudes.

"Hopefully it will lead to a constructive response."

He points to a business that advertises an upstairs patio which is obviously out of reach for many physically challenged people.

"People in wheelchairs like to have fun, like everyone else," said McGinnis, a personal support worker with the Independent Living Centre who also has private clients.

He brought his friend, Nick Wendler, to an interview with a Record reporter Tuesday at a downtown Waterloo Starbucks. Wendler uses a wheelchair.

"Pretty well, everywhere you go, there's issues," Wendler said.

Wendler has upper body strength so he can open doors as long as they're not too heavy. But he's independent and prefers not to patronize businesses where he has to ask for help.

The two A++ businesses in Waterloo are ones that have sliding doors which open with a sensor.

Next best are the 11 A+ businesses that have automatic doors and ramps — which includes all the banks.

The 32 buildings without automatic doors were graded with a B for "accessible with effort."

McGinnis gave 12 businesses that have narrow or slanted entranceways, plus no automatic doors, a C for "accessible with difficulty."

Jill Clark is a volunteer with the Waterloo Region Family Network, which helps children with disabilities and their families. She is friends with Sutherland.

She thinks it's good business to be accessible. Businesses that aren't "are losing business," she said.

Accessible businesses appeal to a wide range of people, including the elderly, mothers with strollers, and people with cerebral palsy, for example.

One Waterloo business owner has responded to an approach from a disabled person by hiring a company to build an inexpensive portable ramp.

But Nick Benninger, of Nick & Nat's Uptown 21, concedes his restaurant does not have accessible washrooms. The small space and high cost would make that too expensive, he said.

The man in a wheelchair who approached Benninger about the problem now comes in for dinner with his friends, he said.

McGinnis called that "a positive development."

The Ontario government passed a law in 2005 requiring all buildings, services, goods and facilities in Ontario to become fully accessible by 2025.

"The battle since then has been to get it effectively implemented," said David Lepofsky, a blind lawyer and chair of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance.

Accessibility has been required under the Human Rights Code and the Charter of Rights for some time, Lepofsky said. But people had to sue to win these rights.

The Ontario government was to enact standards for different sectors of the economy, spelling out the requirements and setting out timelines, Lepofsky said. The government was to set up standards' committees for each sector.

"They've set up to do the first five. They've enacted four of them," Lepofsky said.

"Still languishing out there is the building code and built environment standards for organizations to know what they have to do."

The committee to discuss building standards was set up in 2010. Lepofsky said the government talked about coming up with building code amendments. But it hasn't happened yet.

The government passed an accessible customer service standard in 2007.

"But it's not as strong as we'd like," he said.

Businesses with more than 20 employees were given five years to file compliance reports. Lepofsky has been unable to find out how many businesses have filed reports.

"We need the disabilities act to be strong and effective, and effectively implemented and enforced so people don't have to do these audits."

As the needs of the disabled become more widely understood, and businesses see them as valuable customers, Lepofsky can foresee the day when people looking for space to rent a store will ask landlords if their space is accessible.

Sutherland is glad McGinnis did the audit.

"It will provide awareness to people on how many places … I couldn't get into," she said. "I would love to be able to go anywhere I choose."

To view the audit, do an internet search for Waterloo Region Accessibility Watch.

Email : dwood@therecord.com



Source : The Record , 28th August 2013