Seymour’s Senior Center To Comply With ADA Accessibility Standards

Joe Luciano, Disability Rights Action Group of CT

Seymour’s senior center has agreed to comply with ADA 1990 accessibility mandates after an investigation by the Office of Civil Rights, U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. In February 2016 I filed a complaint after observing that the center’s picnic grove and its two picnic tables were inaccessible. Many center members use wheelchairs. A 6-inch curb posed a barrier to the grove; a crosswalk was absent. The picnic tables were built by town high school students who, together with their teachers, were unaware that the ADA requires picnic tables to be wheelchair accessible.

Rather than making a simple modification (adding extensions to the table ends), the center removed the tables and closed the grove. The center will also post larger signs at its public entrance indicating the location of the accessible entrance. (Existing signs were too small and could only be read after climbing the steps to the able-bodied entrance.) The center will also fix the inoperable doorbell at its acces-sible entrance and post signage giving phone numbers for contacting center staff.

For more information: [email protected].

ICE Overrides Blumenthal on Deportation | NHIndy

Christopher Peak, New Haven Independent, Aug 21, 2017

Marco Antonio Reyes Alvarez, the undocumented Ecuadorian immigrant who has found sanctuary from deportation in a church downtown, might face a pro-longed stay at First & Summerfield due to a new directive that limits the ability of members of Congress to halt remov-al orders. Federal legislators have regularly introduced “private immigration bills,” which, if passed, would grant permanent legal residency to a person who entered the coun-try illegally. More importantly, while the private immigra-tion bills were being considered, federal agents at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) used to hold off on deporting the individual. If a U.S. senator was willing to stick his neck out for an undocumented immigrant, author-ities would take that into consideration before kicking the immigrant out of the country. Read the full article at NewHavenIndependent.org.

New Haven Stands with Standing Rock petitioning Mayor Harp to cut ties with Wells Fargo Bank

Dear Friends,

Thank you for signing our petition asking the City of New Haven to move its operating budget out of Wells Fargo bank to a local or regional bank that is big enough to handle the account but is not guilty of gross violations of human rights (such as funding the Dakota Access pipeline) and customers’ rights not to be cheated, such as has been exposed multiple times at Wells Fargo. This is part of a powerful national (and international) campaign.

Sign the petition here if you haven’t already

https://goo.gl/forms/wAS2UwHHGhTdu83v2

We’ve met with Mayor Harp and her controller. We’ve collected many hundreds of signatures on our petition in person, and the link to the electronic version is below, in hopes that you will help us spread the word through social media or your own personal lists. (Signers must be New Haven residents.)

Please come to our rally on Aug. 31 to press the mayor to do the right thing, and invite your friends, family and co-workers.

New Haven: Cut Ties with Wells Fargo!
WHAT: Rally to demand the City move its operating funds out of Wells Fargo bank
WHEN: Thursday, Aug. 31, 4:30-6 p.m.
WHERE: Outside City Hall, 165 Church St. (across from the Green)
WHO: Everyone who wants justice for the Standing Rock Sioux (we’ll have an update) and the taxpayers of New Haven
WHY: Wells Fargo invested in the Dakota Access pipeline and invests in other dirty energy projects and immigration detention facilities; it has been caught several times ripping off its own customers; Wells Fargo is not a safe place for our money!

Solidarity,

Melinda for NHSwSR

Sign the petition here if you haven’t already

https://goo.gl/forms/wAS2UwHHGhTdu83v2

New Haven Labor History Association Annual Conference and Meeting June 25: Reviving the Labor Movement

Steve Kass, GNHLHA Executive Board, President

This year’s annual conference and meeting of the Greater New Haven Labor History Association (GNHLHA) will honor an organization and an individual with the “Pass It On” awards in addition to having a keynote address on reviving the labor movement.

The honorees are IRIS (Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services) and Frank R. Annunziato.

1) IRIS started in 1982 and continues to this day to be a vital organization that works in New Haven to resettle refugees and other immigrants from around the world since 1982. IRIS is named after the iris flower, which thrives all over the world and is a symbol of hope and faith.

The numbers and nationalities of clients have fluctuated as the world has changed in the past 34 years. Currently, IRIS addresses the critical needs of hundreds of refugees; about 420 arrived in New Haven and surrounding towns in 2016. Refugees come from a wide range of war-torn countries, including Sudan, The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria.

IRIS recognizes that welcoming persecuted people from other countries is both an ancient and universal custom, and part of a long tradition in the United States. In today’s political climate of hatred and mistrust, organizations such as this provide an extremely important beacon of hope to us all. This award also recognizes the historical link between immigration and labor.

2) Frank R. Annunziato’s career and commitment to the labor movement spans almost 50 years. He is an academic (PhD thesis on collective bargaining in education), writer, teacher, workshop leader, activist, labor historian and organizer. He recently retired as the Executive Director of the University of Rhode Island, American Association of University Professors after 17 years. He was the founding president of the Greater New Haven Labor History Association in 1988.

As always, there will be time for refreshments and socializing with our troubadour, Frank Panzarella, serenading us with labor songs. Please join us on Sunday, June 25 from 1:30 – 4 p.m. at the Greater New Haven Central Labor Council, 267 Chapel St.

PACE to Host House Tour and Electric Vehicle Show on Saturday, June 10

People’s Action for Clean Energy (PACE) will host a tour of a beautiful, award-winning, energy-efficient home in East Haddam, CT at noon and 2:30 p.m. on June 10. In addition, the tour will include an electric vehicle show featuring EVs from the New England Electric Automobile Association. The home, a winner of the 2015 Connecticut Zero Energy Challenge, is an example of how energy efficient homes can also be beautiful and comfortable to live in. It features a dramatic, open floor-plan, passive solar design, an extremely tight building envelope, close attention to air quality and state-of-the-art HVAC and solar technologies. Come experience this house in person.

For tickets, go online to www.pace-cleanenergy.org and click on EVENTS. For additional information, call (860) 217-3686.

Queer, There, and Everywhere, Author Talk and Book Signing Monday, June 19, 6:30 p.m.

World history has been made by countless lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer individuals—and you’ve never heard of many of them. Sarah Prager delves deep into the lives of 23 people who fought, created, and loved on their own terms. From high-profile figures like Abraham Lincoln and Eleanor Roosevelt to the trailblazing gender-ambiguous Queen of Sweden and a bisexual blues singer who didn’t make it into your history books, these astonishing true stories uncover a rich queer heritage that encom-passes every culture, in every era. By turns hilarious and inspiring, the beautifully illustrated Queer, There, and Everywhere is for anyone who wants the real story of the queer rights movement.

Sarah Prager is the author of the new book Queer, There, and Everywhere: 23 People Who Changed the World. Also the founder of the Quist mobile app, Sarah has dedicated the last four years to making LGBTQ history engaging and accessible for youth. This career has taken her to the White House, several universities across four countries, the offices of companies like Google and Twitter, the American Embassy in Mexico, and beyond. Sarah lives in Wallingford with her wife and daughter.
Come meet Sarah Prager on Monday, June 19, 6:30 p.m. at the Mitchell Library, 37 Harrison St. For info: (203) 946-8117, www.nhfpl.org.

Jewish Voice For Peace 2017 National Membership Meeting

Susan Bramhall, Jewish Voice for Peace

Seven members of Jewish Voice For Peace New Haven traveled to Chicago to join over a thousand others at the semiannual national membership meeting of Jewish Voice For Peace (JVP) March 31 – April 2.

This year’s conference reflected the intentional efforts of JVP to become more inclusive and delve deeply into the implications of intersections with related social justice movements. Many speakers presented information on the underlying colonial and racist nature of the Zionist project leading us inevitably to understanding the many separate struggles as one movement with common goals.

The first day of the conference was devoted to the first-ever gathering of Jews of color, Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews in solidarity with Palestine and in partnership with JVP (JOCSM). A general session presented by Ilise Cohen titled “Understanding Israeli State Racism and Hierarchy through Mizrahi History, Accommodation, Struggles, and Resistance” was an eye-opening tour of racism within the Jewish community. JOCSM and JVP stand in strong support of the #BlackLivesMatter Vision For Black Lives platform.

Growing out of this deepening connection is a new campaign that will be kicking into high gear this summer: Deadly Exchange. The project will focus on the deadly falsehood that violence against some communities will create security for others as has long been perpetuated by the policies of both the U.S. and Israeli government. The focus will be exposing and working to stop the training of U.S. police by Israeli forces in the art of occupation. And, yes, it happens in Connecticut as well as Ferguson and Atlanta. Stay tuned for more information.

A last note we’d like to share is that the New Haven chapter was honored to facilitate a well-attended train-the-trainers workshop on conducting Anti-Islamophobia workshops. We have just completed the second of these self-study sessions in partnership with members of the Muslim Coalition of Connecticut and hope to offer more in the future. Contact [email protected] for more information.

Videos of keynote sessions by Judith Butler, Linda Sarsour, Rasmeah Odeh and others are all available online at nmm.jewishvoiceforpeace.org.

Connecticut: Still Unready for Independent Living

Joseph A. Luciano Sr., Disability Rights Action Group of CT

ADA compliance in my community (Seymour) and most of Connecticut’s other 168 hasn’t changed much since the diatribe I wrote in 2014.

In my hometown, 26 years, or 9,783 days of opportunities on the road to accessibility—and, therefore, achieving status as a Livable Community—have been wasted. 9,783 days! Most merchants, their employees and property owners still do not know about the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Or they don’t care—or have little incentive to care. Even today, community leaders have no incentive to provide educational town meetings, one-on-one counseling, or materials such as guides, or instructional videos. Incidentally, educational materials are free at ADA.gov.

Educating businesses about access should be community leaders’ top priority. Members of boards and committees themselves should be learning regulations on access and be instructing merchants. Or delegate someone with expert ADA knowledge to lead the way. Those who don’t know or who don’t care should just get out of the way. Or get pushed out of the way.

The Connecticut Main Street Center organization should end giving awards for “pretty” downtowns; it should instead give awards for ADA compliance or accessibility! Businesses that make themselves accessible open the market to consumers of all abilities and increase local economic development.
The program “Money Follows the Person” has had Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s strong support to move thousands of eligible persons out of nursing homes into independent living. This initiative, targeted for completion by 2016, is already saving government hundreds of millions a year. But there’s a catch: Independent living, or Aging in Place, requires communities to be ready as “livable” communities. (Communities become livable when their leadership implements ADA standards.)

My community’s leadership recently (and inexplicably) approved more senior/handicapped housing despite obvious community un-readiness for independent living. Result: All that seniors and persons with disabilities now living here can do is use their canes, walkers, wheelchairs, and scooters to merely “stroll” around, looking into inaccessible shops.

Go figure.

To contact Disability Rights Action Group of Connecticut: [email protected], (203) 463-8323.

Environmental Leadership Series!

Deadline to Apply: June 6, 2017

Neighborhood Housing Services (NHS) of New Haven is proud to announce our Inaugural Environmental Leadership Series! Learn about the environment and your neighbor-hood, connect with useful resources and people, and aspire to create your own environmental projects.
This year’s workshops are as follows:

June 13, 2017: Climate, Health, and Neighborhoods
June 20, 2017: Home Energy-Efficiency, Going Solar, and Other Renewable Solutions
July 11, 2017: Planning a Project
July 18, 2017: Water in Your Home and Neighborhood
August 1, 2017: Talking Trash, Managing Waste, and Greening Neighborhood Spaces
August 8, 2017: Transportation Matters and Project Showcase

Participants must attend at least five of the workshops listed above. Sessions will be held from 6 – 8 p.m. at NHS of New Haven. Dinner will be provided. Visit our website to apply today! nhsofnewhaven.org/content/environmental-leadership-program.

The application, as well as $20 registration fee, is due by June 6, 2017. Scholarships are available upon request.

May Day/International Workers’ Day and Immigrants’ Rights Rally and March

Dozens of area organizations endorsed the day-long May Day and immigrants’ rights rally on the New Haven Green where many hundreds enjoyed entertainment, speakers and exhibits. The day ended with a march from downtown through Grand Avenue, a great example of networking and building a local coalition of resistance. In addition to the sponsors listed on the flyers, there were many more that helped build this day of action, such as Progressive Action Roundtable, People Against Injustice, May Day Celebration Committee, Food Not Bombs, the Shoreline Green Party and GNH Labor History Association.

The support and solidarity for this year’s May Day was broad. Among the speakers prior to the march was Mayor Toni Harp, who declared that New Haven will remain a city welcoming to immigrants.
RESIST Foundation, which awarded a generous grant for the event, wants more people to know about their work so potential applicants and donors will be aware of Radical Philanthropy. Contact them at 259 Elm Street, Somerville, MA 02144. Telephone: (617) 623-5110.

Website: resist.org.
Local TV station WTNH posted a video on its website with its news story: wtnh.com/2017/05/01/ new-haven-may-day-protests-take-on-new-urgency-under-trump/

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