ADA Police -Association of Disability Advocates.

We take complaints from people with disabilities across the country. We also accept some complaints from people with disabilities in Canada. When a complaint is valid we help to try and solve the problem. We do most of our work by email and by telephone. Our members (if you come to us with a complaint you are considered a member) write to us with problems with public access, problems with accessible housing, problems with accessible transportation, and problems with access to government programs and services.

In order for a complaint to be valid the person contacting us must be qualified for the protection of the ADA or the related federal disability rights laws. Our first questions typically address the person contacting us so that we can make sure that legal rights and protections are available. Then the problem must be a violation of a federal disability civil rights law or a state disability rights law. Once we make sure of those facts we go to work.

We succeed in resolving about 90% of the complaints we accept through telephone calls. We talk to business owners about their violations of the ADA through their failures to remove architectural or communications barriers or their discriminatory policies. We talk to government officials about their failures to modify their policies so that their programs and services are fully accessible to people with disabilities. We talk with landlords and residential property owners about the requirements of the Fair Housing Act including alterations for accessibility and policy and rule modifications as reasonable accommodations. We talk to airline representatives when the rights of passengers with disabilities provided by the Air Carrier Access Act are being violated.

Because we know the law we are able to educate those who are violating the civil rights of our members and we are usually able to convince these people to do what is necessary to comply with the law. Because we are experienced in federal litigation we make it clear that a failure to resolve the problem will result in a referral to lawyers who will be happy to file suit in federal court. We try to be nice when contacting business owners or government representatives. When we find resistance we take the gloves off and make it clear that compliance with the civil rights of people with disabilities is not optional. Comply voluntarily or face litigation.

We have succeeded in helping many of our members solve problems of accessible housing where the issues were needed alterations or modification of policies (such as no pets policies when the member has a service animal). We have had curb ramps built, doors widened, grab bars installed, even lifts at swimming pools. We have succeeded in several cases where local paratransit services were not providing adequate services and were not meeting the minimum requirements of the ADA. We have succeeded in many cases where businesses had failed to remove architectural and/or communications barriers the removal of which is required by the ADA. We have succeeded in convincing several local governments that they need to modify their policies when their policies result in discrimination against people with disabilities (such as leash laws when a person with a disability is unable to hold a leash). We have established close relationships with the people in charge of disability services of several airlines and can often solve air travel problems ranging from accessible seating to damage to mobility devices.

The Association of Disability Advocates does not charge anything for our assistance. People with disabilities generally have a tough enough time with money without having to spend money to get the access that is under law supposed to be there. We do not accept donations. We do this because it is important and because someone has to do it. We are a not for profit corporation but we are not an IRS approved 501c3 non-profit. That is because we do not have any money. With no fee for membership, no fee for our assistance, and a policy of not accepting donations, we have no reason to be tax exempt. We can beat on the table for equal access until the cows come home with no fear of retaliatory litigation because we have nothing for which we can be sued.

We also enforce the ADA by training people to perform "pre-litigation inspections". When a property has barriers to equal access and a lawsuit will be filed the plaintiff lawyer is required to verify the facts of the case before filing the lawsuit. Most lawyers are not experts in the technical standards of the ADA Accessibility Guidelines. To help the lawyers who represent people with disabilities we train people in these technical requirements. With rare exception the people we train to be pre-litigation inspectors are people with disabilities. Lawyers hire the Association of Disability Advocates to perform these inspections for them and to provide a report detailing the violations of the ADA found in the inspections. The fee charged of the lawyers for this work is passed on to the inspector with nothing taken from the fee by the Association. One hundred percent of what is charged for pre-litigation inspection work goes to the inspectors. Our pre-litigation inspection program not only provides an important service to attorneys, it provides some income to people with disabilities - the most underemployed minority group in the United States.

When our advocacy efforts fail we typically will refer our members to our "sister" organization, All Disabled Americans, Inc. This organization works with a number of lawyers. By the time a case gets to them it is ready for a lawsuit to be filed. The Association of Disability Advocates does not enter lawsuits as a plaintiff but All Disabled Americans typically will join an individual plaintiff as an associational co-plaintiff, which provides broader plaintiff standing.