News

It is still very fresh news for all of us at RespectAbility that my friend and colleague Ben Spangenberg passed away, but amidst the grief, it is impossible not to remember Ben’s amazing contributions. Obviously, Ben was best known in our world for his leadership of our National Leadership Fellowship Program. He lived by a simple vision saying, “I want young people in the disability community to know they are loved and appreciated for their unique dreams, talents, and skills.” He always maintained that the disability community needed the opportunity to share and be recognized for our talents. He was particularly excited when the fellowship began to pay hourly wages, as he knew that it would enable many more people to participate in the program. This exemplified one of the strongest facets of Ben’s leadership, but not the only one. [continue reading…]

When I first joined RespectAbility, Ben was one of the first team members I met. He shared with me that RespectAbility was a family, not just a workplace, and it turns out, he was right. What he didn’t say back then, but I came to learn during my tenure, was that Ben was a big part of why RespectAbility is more than just a team of disabled and disability advocates working toward common goals. Ben recognized and appreciated the humanity in all of us and understood better than most that our authentic, disabled identities made us powerful human beings. These identities also make us better advocates and models for those who come after us. [continue reading…]

I initially joined RespectAbility as a Fellow in January 2018, as a part of the first Fellowship cohort that Ben was responsible for recruiting. Some of the people in that cohort remain my closest friends, and without Ben, I would have never met any of them.

Later in 2018, I joined the Staff. Ben and I worked together closely to promote the Fellowship program and supervise the Communications Fellows. I had never managed anyone before, but Ben was a great mentor to me in how to provide constructive feedback on assignments. He really cared about making sure that every single Fellow would leave the program ready for success in the workplace. I’m a better manager because of Ben. [continue reading…]

Ben Spangenberg began as a Fellow in our National Leadership Program shortly after I started working at RespectAbility. By 2017, he was managing the National Leadership Program. Ben truly gave his all when working with Fellows. He knew personally how it felt to be discriminated against in the workplace due to a disability, and he not only fought hard to help change the landscape for future individuals but also imparted his “Benly wisdom” to more than 200 Fellows who came through the program under his tutelage. He has helped countless people learn how to advocate for themselves – especially in terms of disability accommodations. His legacy will live on in the dozens of Fellows he mentored – reviewing resumes, conducting mock interviews, and connecting them to a vast network within the disability community. [continue reading…]

Ben and I worked for the same organization, but we chose to be friends and work-siblings! I will cherish our goofy conversations, our joyful chats, our sad times, and our shared love of all the Fellows who came through our program.

Some of our funniest conversations had our beloved cats involved. I remember helping Ben use a lint roller on his then-new wheelchair because a certain little Miss Madison had decided she liked his new orange wheels! We both had fur all over us, and we just started laughing so loudly that we interrupted a meeting in the office next door and got shushed. Which made us laugh even more (after we shut the office door!). [continue reading…]

What do you think about when you are shopping for clothes? Maybe you like wearing specific colors, or have a go-to brand, or perhaps you are thinking about a special event. For many disabled people, while all of that is important to take into consideration, many other factors go into deciding whether to purchase an item of clothing. A pair of jeans might look great on the rack, but how easy are they to put on? Can the buttons on that shirt be fastened without needing to ask for assistance? This outfit looks great, but are the seams and the fabric sensory-friendly? These questions just scratch the surface of the problems that the adaptive fashion industry is trying to solve.

Adaptive fashion is clothing modified with certain features to fit the needs of disabled consumers. There are various types of adaptive clothes to cater to the different types of disabilities. [continue reading…]

Los Angeles, July 27 – As RespectAbility enters its second decade fighting stigmas and advancing opportunities, the organization is proud to announce that Linda L. Burger has been elected as its first female Chair of the Board of Directors. Additionally, Christine Cadena and Paul Martin have been elected to the Board of Directors after serving on the organization’s Advisory Council. Cadena has joined the Executive Committee as a Vice Chair, alongside continuing Vice Chairs Vivian Bass and Delbert Whetter. Craig Leen has joined the Executive Committee as Secretary, and Khadija Bari remains Treasurer. Shelley Cohen remains on the Executive Committee as an at-large member.

Ollie Cantos

Ollie Cantos is staying on the Executive Committee as the Immediate Past Chair. “I am filled with intense gratitude for having had the privilege of being at the helm of RespectAbility over the past two years, and it is my honor to join the ranks of Donn Weinberg, Calvin Harris, and Steve Bartlett as Chairs Emeriti,” said Cantos. “I am grateful to pass the baton to a new leader, who will surely build on our solid history as we tackle a future that is extraordinarily bright with promise and possibility.”

Linda Burger

Linda L. Burger has served on RespectAbility’s Board since 2016; she was elected Treasurer in 2018. Her professional life has been devoted to leading and shaping a robust resume of work in the Houston Jewish community, most recently in creating significant social service programs as CEO of Jewish Family Service of Houston, from which she retired in 2022. Since becoming CEO in 2005, Burger and her team instituted game-changing initiatives that transformed and expanded the agency’s ability to respond to basic needs and community emergencies and focus on erasing stigmas associated with disability and mental health issues. Her leadership on inclusion of and advocacy for people with disabilities and the prevention of suicide and substance misuse has received national recognition. [continue reading…]

The heart of RespectAbility’s self-employment project is a collaborative gathering of best practices and resources. Like most collaborative processes, the project has many moving parts, but that doesn’t mean that we need to wait to start sharing the information with our readers. RespectAbility Policy Fellow Audrey Bayne has invested significant time and energy learning about state Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) self-employment programs. Below, she briefly describes how Texas is leading the way.

The national Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) argues that the inherent flexibility of self-employment is often a better match for people with disabilities than traditional “nine to five” employment, making them more likely to retain their employment status. VR clients whose cases end in self-employment make an average of nearly 80% more income than their peers who obtain traditional competitive integrated employment (CIE). Despite self-employment providing significantly more flexibility and income than traditional CIE, many states’ VR offices are not adequately equipped to assist their clients in pursuing this kind of employment.

In fact, despite its significant benefits, nationally only 1.7% of VR cases end in self-employment. Virginia Commonwealth University’s Rehabilitation Research and Training Center surveyed several hundred VR employees and found that a majority of those employed by state Vocational Rehabilitation offices did not feel adequately equipped to assist their clients in seeking self-employment. RespectAbility’s self-employment project is looking at the successes of different states, in the hopes that we can all learn from each other.

One standout state in the area of self-employment for VR clients is Texas. In 2019, 9.1% of Texas clients’ cases closed in self-employment, more than five times the national average. There appear to be some secrets to Texas’ success. [continue reading…]

As a final project for her Spring Fellowship, Policy Fellow Emily Snodderly wrote and delivered this policy speech examining the practice of paying subminimum wages to people with disabilities.

In 1938, the Fair Labor Standards Act created the federal minimum wage, but it included an exception for people with disabilities. The exception was intended to preserve employment opportunities for people, especially wounded veterans, who couldn’t keep up with “normal production” in factories. Now, 85 years later, thanks to this law, an estimated 53,000 workers in the United States earn less than minimum wage, sometimes pennies per hour, solely because they have a disability.

This is the typical experience of a worker with a disability earning subminimum wage. We’ll call her Janet. Janet is a 35-year-old woman with an intellectual disability. For the last 15 years, she has worked in something called a sheltered workshop. Like Janet, all her coworkers have some sort of disability. For 10 hours a week, they sort and package products like jewelry or soap. Every 6 months, Janet’s supervisor times how fast she works in order to justify her current wage. She earns $4 an hour–about average for sheltered workshop employees. After an entire year of sorting and packaging the same way every day, Janet has earned a grand total of $2,000.

Oftentimes, when I first tell someone about subminimum wage employment, their reaction is positive. They say, “Isn’t that a good thing? If employers can pay lower wages, it incentivizes them to hire people with disabilities. Plus, people who couldn’t otherwise get a job get the satisfaction of having a job.” However, this perspective is based on two false assumptions. [continue reading…]