[bksvol-discuss] Fwd: Fw: Social Security involved n Law Suit with several blind/visually impaired.
- From: Cindy <popularplace@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 00:28:12 -0800 (PST)
Louise sent me this article from the San Francisco
Chronicle. Unbelievable stupidity!! Thank goodness for
people who are "Mad as Hell and won't take it any
more." (Most of you are probably too young to have
seen the movie Network, but if it ever comes on tv or
if youcan rent it, you should--it's great, and Peter
Finch was one of my favorite actors).
Cindy
> SAN FRANCISCO; Blind, visually impaired suing Social
> Security THE SAN
> FRANCISCO CHRONICLE (California) November 17, 2005
> Thursday
>
> THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE (California) November
> 17, 2005 Thursday FINAL
> Edition
> HEADLINE: SAN FRANCISCO;
> Blind, visually impaired suing Social Security
>
> BYLINE: Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
>
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/11/17/state/n08302
> 7S85.DTL
>
> A group of blind and visually impaired people sued
> the Social Security
> Administration on Wednesday for cutting their
> benefits after they failed to
> respond to printed notices they couldn't read.
>
> The proposed nationwide class-action suit, filed in
> U.S. District Court in
> San Francisco, seeks to require the agency to
> provide benefits information
> in Braille or other formats accessible to the blind
> and those with limited
> vision.
>
> "It is an outrage that (the Social Security
> Administration), the agency that
> should know more about disability than any other,
> sends critical information
> to blind and visually impaired beneficiaries in
> print only,'' said Arlene
> Mayerson, an attorney with the Disability Rights
> Education and Defense Fund
> in Berkeley.
>
> More than 100,000 blind and visually impaired
> Americans receive Social
> Security benefits, the suit said.
>
> Lowell Kepke, a spokesman for the regional Social
> Security office in
> Richmond, said the agency could not comment on the
> lawsuit.
>
> The suit was filed by seven individuals and the
> American Council of the
> Blind. It accuses the Social Security Administration
> of violating the
> Rehabilitation Act, which since 1978 has required
> federal agencies to
> provide disabled people with services and devices
> that allow them equal
> access to government benefits.
>
> The agency has rejected repeated requests to notify
> blind recipients about
> changes in their benefits in Braille or by e-mail,
> which is converted to a
> spoken-word format by software, Mayerson said.
>
> She said the only accommodation had been a program
> in which case workers
> read important documents over the telephone. The
> program is little
> publicized, the service is sporadic, and a one-time
> reading of complex
> documents is often inadequate to convey their
> meaning, Mayerson said.
>
> One plaintiff, Marvelena Quesada, 31, of San
> Francisco, had her benefits
> suspended in 2003 because she failed to attend a
> meeting to which she was
> summoned in a letter from the Social Security
> Administration, the suit said.
> It also said she suffered financial hardship for
> several months, could not
> buy groceries and had to borrow money for basic
> necessities. Quesada asked
> that future notices be sent in Braille, but the
> agency refused, the suit
> said.
>
> Another plaintiff, Alice Marjorie Donovan, 43, of
> Burlingame said her
> benefits had been suspended for two months last year
> and reduced this year
> also based on written notices. The agency has
> finally agreed to e-mail its
> letters to her, she said, but the service has been
> "hit and miss.''
>
> "I've attached notes (to written letters) saying,
> 'Please provide in
> accessible format,' and they would resend it to me
> without paying the least
> attention,'' Donovan said in an interview. "It's a
> lack of humanness in
> their system.''
>
> Another plaintiff, 66-year-old Billie Jean Keith of
> Arlington, Va., is
> visually impaired and has tried since 1982 to get
> the agency to send her
> notices in large print, the suit said. It said she
> believed she was being
> short-changed on benefits but had been unable to
> challenge the agency's
> calculations because she can't read them.
>
> Wondie Russell, lead attorney for the plaintiffs,
> said banks and public
> utilities provide messages to their customers in
> Braille, audiotape and
> digital computer files. The Social Security
> Administration, she said, "has
> done little or nothing to assist its blind
> beneficiaries, despite numerous
> appeals.''
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Internal Virus Database is out-of-date.
> Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
> Version: 7.0.344 / Virus Database: 267.10.19/93 -
> Release Date: 9/8/2005
>
>
__________________________________
Yahoo! FareChase: Search multiple travel sites in one click.
http://farechase.yahoo.com
To unsubscribe from this list send a blank Email to
bksvol-discuss-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
put the word 'unsubscribe' by itself in the subject line. To get a list of
available commands, put the word 'help' by itself in the subject line.
Other related posts:
- » [bksvol-discuss] Fwd: Fw: Social Security involved n Law Suit with several blind/visually impaired.
