Hi everybody- is it week nine already? Wow.

It certainly doesn’t seem like it, but believe it or not, it is. In my previous blogs, I’ve talked about the ADA and the implementation of it, but this week I found some real life examples of how there might be some room for improvement.

On Saturday, I went to the Cleveland Browns’ Stadium for their annual Family Day and Brown and White Scrimmage game (side note: I think our quarterbacks could use a little more practice before the season starts, guess we’ll see next week in the first preseason game…but I digress).  We had gotten there roughly an hour early and the stadium was starting to be really busy. My family and I went to many of the sections for the disabled community and it was already full-up with families with strollers and lots of children- no wheelchairs or elderly people with walkers in sight.

My point is, when we went to Guest Services, we were told it was a non-ticketed event and that we should have gotten there earlier if we wanted seats. They also said they couldn’t ask anyone to move from the section because there was no telling if they had a disability or not and they weren’t allowed to ask. 

Now, in all fairness, I understand this, but according to the ADA they are required to have sections with available seating for people with disabilities, and while the stadium does comply with this, they need to be more cognizant and inform families with strollers that seating needs to be made available should someone with a disability show up. 

The Guest Services representative sent someone with us to help us find a seat in another section on the other side of the stadium, where they were told there was seating available.  When we finally got there, the Guest Services rep was turned away by a Seating Manager who said we could not sit there, as it was full. This was strange, considering the Guest Services rep outranked the Seating Manager and most of the seats in the section were empty.  They actually were left empty the entire game (we could see them from where we finally ended up), but we didn’t argue and we continued to look until we found seating in the end zone, where, strangely enough, they were other people with disabilities who had the same experience as we did and were told the same thing as we were. 

It was eventually announced that there were approximately 23,000 people who turned out for the scrimmage.  That left approximately 49,000 seats empty.  Unfortunately, none of them were wheelchair accessible but would have been accessible to the families who were seated in the accessible seating areas.   It just so happens that the accessible seating areas are in great viewing spots and have padded seating and they are easy to get to.  In my opinion, the fact that the Browns didn’t enforce the policy of one person with a disability and one companion, as they do for games, is why I had such a difficult time finding a place to sit.  I spoke with several other persons with a disability who had the same thing happen on Sunday- I was not alone in my disappointment with the Browns organization.   This just shows how, even when there are accommodations provided for you, if rules are not enforced by the venues, people with disabilities can be left out of an event by being denied equal access. I know in previous blogs I have discussed the need to educate the community about the need for accommodations and enforcement of the rules and this example gives evidence to that fact. 

This weekend, Sunday specifically, I also went down to the Warehouse District for their Arts Fest. This district, if you’ve never been, contains a lot of nice old buildings that I assume were former warehouses, given the name of the area. One of the downsides of this though is the lack of accessibility it creates. While I know that buildings built prior to the passage of the ADA do not have to adapt their buildings if they choose not to renovate their building, I still think it’s a shame more businesses don’t make the necessary renovations so as to attract the business of the disabled community.

A lot of the apartment buildings that I had looked at while I was there all have ADA compliant accessible renovations, but what they consider accessible, again, is not really accessible. For example they lack roll-in showers, and grab bars in their bathroom.  While I can get in their front door, I can’t necessarily use their bathrooms, if I were to live there.

I don’t want to make this blog seem too upsetting though, so I wanted to end on more of a positive note- something that people created in a thoughtful and inclusive way.  For those of you unfamiliar with the current innovations in the electronic interactive gaming community, Microsoft is currently designing a hands-free video game system known as Kinect. It also features speech recognition and controls, and recently, they announced that it will recognize American Sign Language as well, providing a much needed adaptation for the deaf community! They also claim it will be useable while in a sitting position, which is good news for some of the physically disabled community, but as of yet no games have been previewed for this adaptation. 

Things are so much better for my generation then they were for previous generations and I’m grateful.  However, I just want to make sure that things keep getting better so that next year or ten years from now, some other young person with a disability won’t have to look at 49,000 empty seats and wonder why there isn’t a place for his wheelchair, his blind friend, his grandma with a walker or anyone else who just can’t make it up the stairs to one of the empty seats.