Ten years ago, Congress passed the Americans With Disabilities Act, which helps millions . . .'Just keep moving' By Diane Lore - Staff

Friday, July 28, 2000

The wheelchair is stuck between the doors of the MARTA train. While Kate Gainer tries to replug the chair's electrical cord back in place, the doors bang on the sides of the chair, with recorded warning commands barking in staccato.

She finally gets the chair plugged in and it lurches inside the train. The train's doors slam shut, and Gainer --- who has cerebral palsy --- succeeds at overcoming another minor, irritating obstacle.

"You learn to overcome and just keep moving," she says with a weak smile.

For Gainer, the snag on the train is just the latest in a lifelong series of challenges she faces as one of the 54 million Americans --- and more than 1 million in Georgia --- with disabilities.

Spending a day with Gainer offers a detailed glimpse at the progress --- and lack of it --- made since Congress passed the Americans With Disabilities Act 10 years ago this week. Handicapped since birth, Gainer has learned to negotiate many of the barriers in her path. Just as she has learned to negotiate cracked sidewalks and broken ramps, she has successfully found ways to confront discrimination, unkindness and businesses that don't comply with the law.

For Gainer, the Americans with Disabilities Act's real strength is not in its requirements to make more places physically accessible, but in its implicit declaration that disabled citizens deserve a quality of life they might not have thought possible a decade ago.

"It's not just the letter of the law, it's the spirit of the law that really counts," Gainer, 51, says.

The ADA, enacted July 26, 1990, became a landmark civil rights law guaranteeing equal opportunity for millions of people suffering from mental and physical disabilities. Since its passage, hundreds of buildings in Georgia have been fitted with access ramps, restroom accommodations and other improvements.

"The ADA is not perfect, it doesn't cover everything," said Gainer. "But it has made life for people with disabilities much better."

Gainer, living five decades with her disability, hasn't needed a law to live life fully. Born at Atlanta's Grady Memorial Hospital, she was enrolled as a youngster in a experimental education project run by Emory University for children with cerebral palsy. That landed her in a classroom with a teacher who insisted that disabled inner-city children be exposed to as many experiences as possible.

They trekked to the symphony, museums and, once, to a farm. The trips opened Gainer's world, instilling a belief that no place or experience was off-limits to her.

In many ways, Gainer says, the only thing that has changed for her over the years is her label: "I went from 'colored and crippled' to 'black and disabled.' "

Twice married, Gainer is a mother, a world traveler, a rebel --- jailed in Orlando in 1992 while protesting housing policies for the disabled --- a volunteer and an on-again, off-again employee. She was the 1982 Miss Wheelchair Georgia. And in 1994, she left her native Atlanta to join her second husband in Sweden --- a man her parents disapproved of because of his race --- for a yearlong marriage.

But even after half of a century of honing her independence, Gainer says there are still barriers to living a "normal" life.

Although movie theaters now offer handicapped seating, Gainer says they're still hit-and-miss about the quality of the seats reserved. Sometimes the seats are located in the first few rows of the theater --- leaving disabled persons with a crick in their necks after a show.

And some churches, exempt from ADA's requirements, remain inaccessible.

"You would think the communities of faith would do this automatically, but that's not what we see," says Dr. Joyce Reynolds Ringer, the Georgia Advocacy Office's executive director. "One thing that I don't think people realize is that when you make a place more accessible for the disabled, you make it more accessible for everyone."

For example, Ringer points out that the ramp to the food court in Underground Atlanta would not have been installed without the ADA. "But now, everyone uses it," she notes, "especially families with small children."

Yet most able-bodied Atlanta residents still cannot conceive of the multitude of small irritations Gainer must overcome daily --- a fact that is evident on a day she spent last week guiding a visitor through the hurdles of her life.

Even before she leaves her own home, her day begins with a series of challenges. Although her apartment, in the shadow of the Georgia Dome, is on the first level and has a ramp, its doorways and hallways are a tight squeeze for the wheelchair --- making Gainer's movement from room to room a careful negotiation of drywall and molding.

Because she can't drive, she uses MARTA and has become very familiar with what works and doesn't for disabled passengers. She becomes far less flustered than her companions when her chair becomes stuck between the doors of the train on her way onto the subway. And when a handicapped metal gate later fails to open, she waits patiently as an employee works out the snafu.

On the bus, traveling is more difficult. In transferring from the train to the bus, she is the last passenger to board. And the driver, after realizing the lever to lower the ramp doesn't work, manually kicks it in place.

After the ride, Gainer frequently veers into the street to go around broken shards of sidewalk and blocks closed because of construction. Some cars slow down as she takes to the street, but often, they speed by within a few feet of her chair.

Powering up her scooter wheelchair, she rolls into a Starbucks for a break. Like many restaurants, the shop offers wide open spaces and a lower counter, making it easy for Gainer to place her order and eat. But even here, her disability plays a role: Because of the weakness in her wrists caused by the cerebral palsy, she must use her teeth to remove the cap from a plastic bottle of Pepsi she has ordered.

Gainer says the day was no different than most.

Sometimes, she can't even go to the bathroom when she wants. Often she ends up waiting for able-bodied women to leave the roomier handicapped stalls. And many bathrooms don't have wide enough stalls or grab bars.

The problem is so acute Gainer can list off the best handicapped restroom stalls in the city: The J.C. Penney's bathroom at Perimeter Mall is good, she says, because it's large enough to get her whole chair in the stall. The same is true of the bathroom at the Phipps Plaza theaters. Both were renovated as part of businesses' compliance with the ADA.

Ringer said many of the complaints her office handles deal with such daily hassles. In 1999, the Georgia Advocacy Office had 271 reports of ADA-related complaints. More than 200 were resolved in the individual's favor, 37 were withdrawn and 23 went against the disabled plaintiff.

Such physical challenges aren't the only barriers, Gainer says. A new poll of disabled people released this week by www.halftheplanet.com, a Web site for the disabled, found that one in four said they had experienced job discrimination.

In many ways, Gainer is more fortunate than most. She has a college degree in business administration. And from 1996 to last year, she was the city of Atlanta's ADA coordinator. Now, she spends much of her time volunteering for local organizations that are trying to recruit more disabled people. On this day, she stops by Hands On Atlanta, then treks down the sidewalk to the Shepherd Center to help organize a torch relay celebrating the ADA's birthday.

As she leaves Hands On Atlanta, she wheels down into the driveway, where a car almost sideswipes her. Looking over her shoulder, she gets wistful ---Gainer would like to work there.

"I've been fortunate since the very beginning. I was always taught there was nothing I couldn't do," she says. "And that's what the ADA does, too --- it tells people that there's no limit. That they can do whatever their imagination and heart can dream up."

GUIDE TO ATLANTA FOR THE DISABLED

Shepherd Center has updated its "Guide to Atlanta for People with Disabilities," which evaluates tourist attractions, banks, parks, grocery stores, hotels, restaurants, churches and malls. In each case, the guide notes whether parking, public restrooms, phones and seating are handicapped accessible. To order the brochure, call the center at 404-350-7454. The guide is also available on The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Web site at www.ajc.com/hguide. A sampling for 10 metro area sites:

* Meets ADA guidelines.

# Basically accessible.

Stone Mountain Park
U.S. 78/6867 Memorial Drive
770-498-5600
Parking: *
Main Entrance: *
Public Restrooms: *
Assembly Seating: *
Public Telephones: *
Comments: Has its own access guide, available in large print. Braille menus. 

Zoo Atlanta
800 Cherokee Ave.
404-624-5600
Parking: #
Main Entrance: #
Public Restrooms: #
Assembly Seating:
Public Telephones: #
Comments: Accessible water fountains throughout. 

SunTrust Bank, Buckhead
3020 Peachtree Road
404-841-1160
Parking: *
Accessible Route: *
Public Telephones: #
Elevators:
Seating/Counter Space: #
Comments: Accessible front and back entrances. Accessible phone in conference room. 

Atlanta Marriott Perimeter Center
246 Perimeter Center
770-394-6500
Parking: *
Main Accessible Route: *
Public Restrooms: #
Public Telephones: #
Guest Rooms: *
Comments: 16 handicapped-accessible rooms. Bath emergency telephones. 

Atlanta History Center
130 West Paces Ferry Road
404-814-4000
Parking: *
Main Entrance: *
Public Restrooms: *
Elevators:
Counters: *
Comments: Museum accessible. Two historic houses not accessible. 

Piedmont Park
1085 Piedmont Ave.
404- 817-6793
Parking: *
Main Entrance: #
Public Restrooms: #
Public Telephones: *
Comments: Sidewalks with curb cuts throughout. 

Cathedral of Christ the King
2699 Peachtree Road N.E.
404-233-2145
Parking: *
Main Entrance: *
Accessible Route:
Public Restrooms:
Assembly Seating: *
Comments: Accessible route is outside. No accessible restrooms. 

Mick's Downtown
557 Peachtree Street N.E,
404- 875-6425
Parking: #
Main Entrance:
Accessible Route: #
Public Restrooms:
Public Telephones:
Seating:
Comments: Steps at main entrance. Enter restrooms from exterior. 

Underground Atlanta:
50 Alabama St. S.W.
404-523-2311
Parking: #
Main Entrance: *
Public Restrooms: *
Public Telephones: #
Comments: Parking deck 92-inch high clearance. All levels are accessible. Best entrance by the Coca-Cola Pavilion.

DeKalb Farmer's Market
3000 East Ponce de Leon Ave.
404- 377-6400
Parking: #
Main Entrance: #
Counters:
Comments: No steps, curbs. All flat parking lot.
Compiled by Diane Lore 

RESOURCES

For more information about the Americans With Disabilities Act:
U.S. Department of Justice
800-514-0301 and 800-514-0383, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday; 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday.

State of Georgia ADA Office
404-657-1741 or 404-657-9993
Georgia Advocacy Office
http://thegao.org
404-885-1234 or 1-800-537-2329 

Shepherd Center
www.shepherd.org
404-350-7533

Disability Link
404-687-8890 or 404-687-9175 or 1-800-239-3507