Disability Rap

Today, we're joined by Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Andi Mudryk, the first openly transgender person in California history to be appointed by a governor to a seat on the California bench. Disability Rap listeners may remember that Andi joined us on the show last year when she was Chief Deputy Director of the California Department of Rehabilitation. In that interview , we talked with Andi...

On today’s show, we focus on resources here in California for people who are unable to speak or whose speech may be difficult to understand. Through the Voice Options program, eligible Californians who are unable to speak or who have difficulty speaking can receive a free speech-generating device. They can also test out various speech-generating apps in order to know which app is best for them.  W...

Today, a follow-up on our January show looking at transportation challenges and opportunities for people with disabilities. We’re joined by Prashanth Venkataram. Prashanth is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Davis. In that role, he focuses on the state of current and future transportation systems for people with disabilities and...

Calls to expand Long Term Services and Supports are growing here in California, in Washington, D.C., and across the country. For people who may be unfamiliar with the term, Long Term Services and Supports, or LTSS, is an umbrella term that encompasses all the supports people with disabilities and older adults need in order to live independently in the community of their choice. Long Term Services...

As mask mandates and other Covid-19 precautions are being relaxed across the country, we look at a group of people who are being left behind as the country races to return to a pre-pandemic normal. There are 7 million people in the US with compromised immune systems, making up just under 3% of the population. For many of these people, the risk of severe illness, hospitalization, and death from Cov...

On today's show, we focus on the intersection of disability and climate change and the disproportional impacts extreme weather can have on people with disabilities and older adults. We start local here in Nevada County and then zoom out for broader perspective and context. On December 26, Nevada, Placer, and El Dorado Counties were hit with a massive snowstorm, the likes of which we have not seen...

On this episode of Disability Rap, we hear from YouTube personalities Dan and Viola Dwyer, creators of The Ginchiest , a series of videos highlighting their lives as people with disabilities who envision a society where differences are intriguing and accepted, not shameful and feared. Dan and Viola discuss the opportunities and challenges of transportation for people with disabilities. They share...

We spend today’s show with Amee Medeiros, the Executive Director of Neighborhood Center of the Arts , a nonprofit in Nevada City that supports people with intellectual and developmental disabilities to make and sell art. Amee tells us how Neighborhood Center has been supporting their artists remotely through the pandemic and shares her vision for the center going forward. In non-pandemic times, Ne...

As Congress and the White House actively negotiate the terms of the Build Back Better package, we spend today’s show with Rebecca Cokley, a Program Officer in the President’s Office at the Ford Foundation, where she develops the US disability rights program strategy for the Foundation. On the show, Rebecca provides analysis on how some of the proposed elements of the Build Back Better package woul...

On Monday, September 27, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed SB639, which will phase out the ability for employers in California to pay people with developmental disabilities below the federal minimum wage. Under federal law, companies can apply for special waivers, called 14(c) certificates, which allow employers to pay people with developmental disabilities below the federal minimum wage. St...

It’s September and we’re in the thick of fire season here in the Sierra Nevada foothills of northern California. We spend today's show talking about emergency preparedness, evacuation planning, and preparing for Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS) events, which are another common occurrence this time of year. We focus on the disability community here in the foothills, but this conversation is relev...

Today, we air highlights of the Our Community: An Aging & Disability Conference, which FREED hosted jointly with the Agency on Aging Area 4 on July 8, 2021. At this year’s conference, we focused on local implementation of California Governor Gavin Newsom’s Master Plan for Aging, which the administration released on January 6, 2021. We heard from local elected officials, representatives from th...

Today, we're joined by Andy Imparato, the Executive Director of Disability Rights California (DRC). DRC is the federally funded legal services agency that serves Californians with disabilities across the age spectrum and across disability. The organization offers a wide array of advocacy services, which Andy tells us about. Also in the interview, Andy looks back on lessons learned from the pandemi...

Today, we bring you a very special show. Ana Acton, who started at FREED in 2004 and has been our Executive Director since 2012 and previously from 2007 to 2010, has been appointed by Governor Newsom to the post of Deputy Director of the Independent Living and Community Access Division at the California Department of Rehabilitation . Since 2007, Ana has hosted Disability Rap. On this episode of Di...

Dan Okenfuss, the Public Policy Manager at the California Foundation for Independent Living Centers (CFILC), joins us this month to discuss his extensive career in California state politics, as well as his leadership in Little People of America (LPA). He also tells us about starting a family with the help of LPA’s adoption program . In his post at CFILC, Dan advocates for the rights and increased...

To mark International Transgender Day of Visibility (March 31), we spend today's show with Andi Mudryk, the Chief Deputy Director of the California Department of Rehabilitation. For over thirty years, Andi has been advocating for policies, programs, and legislation that benefit the lives of people with disabilities. She is a person with a disability who has Osteogenesis Imperfecta, commonly known...

On today's show, we look at the movement here in California to grant people with significant disabilities priority access to the Covid-19 vaccine. Studies show that people with certain physical or developmental disabilities are up to three times more likely to die from Covid-19 as compared to the general population. And yet, it wasn’t until February 12 that Governor Newsom announced that people wi...

Today is the start of February, and Valentine’s Day is just around the corner. So, we decided to mark this time of year by inviting Dan and Viola Dwyer on the show. They are a married couple, and we invited them on Disability Rap to talk about their marriage and common misconceptions about people with disabilities in relationships. At the age of nine, Dan was in a hit and run accident that left hi...

On today's show, we look at one disabled person’s experience being admitted into a hospital here in California this fall. His name is John Pixley. He was admitted into the hospital for four days this past October for something totally unrelated to the coronavirus. Despite prior assurances to the contrary, the hospital refused to allow his personal care attendants to be with him in the hospital. Th...

On today's show, we look back at the November election, and how easily, or not, people with disabilities were able to cast our ballots here in California. We also look forward and hear some of the voting advocacy work in the pipeline for the coming year. We are joined by two guests. Paul Spencer is staff attorney with the voting practice group at Disability Rights California. Paul follows voting i...

On the eve of the election, Rebecca Cokley of the Center for American Progress Action Fund talks to us about the disabled community’s increasing political power in the United States. She also tells us about her own journey growing up in a multigenerational disabled family. We then hear both Presidential campaigns’ speeches to the Disability & Election Virtual Summit, where they present their d...

On today's show, we bring you extended excerpts of Nevada County's Education Workshop for Voters with Disabilities. This workshop took place via Zoom this past Friday, October 16, and was open to the public. The workshop was hosted by Jaime Melugin from the Nevada County Elections Department. She was joined by our co-host, Carl Sigmond, who is FREED's Disability Community Advocate, Mark Fenicle, C...

Last week, we brought you part one of our conversation on the disproportional effects the coronavirus pandemic is having on people with disabilities and older adults. This week, we are bringing you part two. We spoke with Monet Clark, a healer and eco-feminist performance based video and photographic artist right here in Nevada City, Meg O’Connell, Founder and CEO of Global Disability Inclusion, D...

This is Part I of this conversation. Part II will be released next Monday. As the number of coronavirus cases in the US tops 6.8 million and the number of deaths from Covid-19 tops 200,000, we spend today's show looking at the disproportionate effects the pandemic is having on older adults and people with disabilities. We've all heard the harrowing stories in the media about some of the early coro...

We have a very special show for you today. Last month was the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The ADA was a landmark civil rights law that affirmed the inherent dignity of every person, regardless of disability. And today, we’re spending the hour celebrating the ADA, its effects on people with disabilities and all Americans, and its impact right here in Neva...