Access Alaska
Duane French, Executive Director
3710 Woodland Drive, Suite 900
Anchorage, Alaska 99517
(907) 248-4777
(907) 248-0639 fax

Access Alaska started, as most "independent living centers" for physically disabled people do, out of desperation. Eight disabled young people, most of them under 30, were compelled to live among geriatric patients in Our Lady of Compassion nursing home, because there were no alternatives.

With the partnership of an Anchorage school teacher who was assigned to go to the nursing home and tutor the younger disabled people, in 1983 the group organized itself as a non-profit, Independent Options Now (ION) and set out to advocate for state funding through Medicaid to allow them to hire personal attendants, making it possible for them to live on their own outside the nursing home. Advocating for rights for disabled people, the group quickly grew from a one-person office to a today's organization, with a staff of 14 in Anchorage, 11 in Fairbanks, and a $1.2 million annual budget.

Modeled initially on the pioneer Center for Independent Living in Berkely, Calif., and also drawing inspiration from Denver's ADAPT, Access Alaska seeks to foster change for Alaska's people with disabilities. It does that through individual advocacy, providing peer counseling and one-on-one work with disabled individuals to ensure that they get all the services for which they're eligible; and through systems advocacy, identifying holes in the system and working to fill them.

For example, Access Alaska successfully pushed the Alaska Legislature to approve a formal exemption from Medicaid regulations that normally force disabled people into nursing homes, and persuaded the legislature to add additional state money to help finance attendant care for disabled people who don't have a low enough income to quality for Medicaid. Access Alaska not only joined the national lobbying effort for the Americans With Disabilities Act, but got a broader, further-reaching state law ensuring civil rights for people with disabilities in advance of the ADA.

It trains disabled people, service providers and counselors in ADA requirements, and works to ensure that Alaska employers and public accommodations abide by the federal law's access requirements, and it networks with the region's low-cost housing organizations to ensure that all housing projects include at least the legal minimum access for accessibility. And when necessary, Access Alaska raises hell, as it did when wheelchair riders mobilized to protest inaccessible design at the $72 million Alaska Center for the Performing Arts in Anchorage.

"We do that kind of thing when it's needed," said French, who uses a motorized wheelchair to get around. "We want to have a high profile in the community and encourage people with disabilities to get involved, run for office, and get involved not just in disability programs but in the community.

All the feature stories on @GRASS-ROOTS.ORG's pages are reported and written by Robin Garr, a prize-winning journalist who has visited more than 500 innovative grassroots programs in all 50 states since 1990.

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