FREED Center for

Independent Living

Serving people with

disabilities in Nevada,

Sierra, Yuba, Sutter and

Colusa Counties

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A disability resource center for people of all ages

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www.freed.org

Grass Valley: 272-1732

Marysville:  742-4474

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FREED’s mission is to

eliminate barriers to full equality for people with

disabilities through programs which promote independent living & effect systems change while honoring dignity and self determination.

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INSIDE

▶Universal Design…..…...….2

▶Assistive Tech Awards…...3

▶Grass Valley: 

      Section 8 Housing……...4

      Wellness Workshops…...4

     Grants for Ramps…….....5

▶Marysville:

      Housing Workshops…...6

      Homemaker Program....6

▶Donate to FREED…....insert

▶Thanks to Donors…..insert

From The Director……..

Dear Friends,

     Spring is here, lengthening the days and urging us to get outdoors and witness the beauty of the changing season.  One of the loveliest (and not coincidentally most wheelchair accessible) places to observe Spring unfolding is the Independence Trail.  The people responsible for its upkeep and nurturing, Sequoia Challenge, have “Family Nature Walks” planned several Saturdays this Spring for those who wish to have a guided experience with a docent who can assist with plant identification and other unique trail features.  Docent training is also available. For information about these activities, call Annie Ewing at 273-9458. You can also enjoy this wheelchair accessible path along the Yuba River and down to Rush Creek on your own.

     On a different topic, the movies Million Dollar Baby and The Sea Within both won accolades including Oscar awards for their stories about people with disabilities asking for help to commit suicide.  It is difficult to imagine that a movie depicting someone from any other group who wished to kill themselves would gain the same reception.  Teens?  Seniors?  These are groups where depression is addressed seriously and suicide prevention is promoted.  When it comes to people with disabilities there’s a pervasive assumption that it’s understandable, heroic even, to end one’s life rather than submit to the indignities of loss of control of bodily functions.  This is stigma at its worst.

     Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF) has this to say about the film voted best movie of the year: “Million Dollar Baby’s depiction of Maggie’s experience upon becoming disabled is laced with many inaccuracies about spinal cord injury, medical care, rehabilitation, and reintegration into society. Why is Maggie in a nursing home rather than receiving effective rehabilitation? Why isn’t the appalling care she is receiving, which allows extreme pressure sores leading to amputation, not more accurately blamed for her suicidal feelings? As the National Spinal Cord Injury Association pointed out, why does it go unmentioned that discrimination, poverty, and an inaccessible society are what can lead newly disabled people to abandon hope and choose death?”

     This discussion is relevant now as California lawmakers have introduced new assisted suicide legislation.  Instead of pursuing “death before disability” legislation, California lawmakers should work to insure that people with disabilities have adequate health care, employment opportunities, accessible transportation and housing and for those who are given a terminal diagnosis, hospice services.  Quality of life encompasses all these things, just as it does for people without disabilities.  It’s simply wrong to decide what quality of life means for someone else, particularly for someone who has not had experience living independently as a person with a disability. The disability community wants assisted suicide proponents to know that we are not better off dead and that assisted suicide cannot be made part of a menu of health services that does not offer real options for living with disability. 

 Wishing you wellness,  Ann Guerra, Executive Director