The Disabled Rights Action Committee (DRAC)
Barbara Toomer, Member
Roy Gomm, Chair
255 West 1300 South
Salt Lake City, Utah 84115
(801) 484-9314

When a Salt Lake saloonkeeper once declined to sell a drink to a person in a wheelchair, arguing that he might get drunk and fall out of the chair, DRAC rolled into action. Within days, a squadron of some three dozen wheelchair-riding Utahns -- some of them tee totaling Mormons who'd never entered a saloon -- turned up in a demonstration, demanding to be served. It didn't take the owner long to cave in, thanks not only to the publicity, which was monumental, but more important, to the reality that federal law forbids such discrimination against disabled people in public accommodations.

DRAC, still another spinoff from Salt Lake City's model Crossroads Urban Project, is an all-volunteer, grassroots community organizing effort composed entirely of disabled volunteers, who staff a drop-in center, organize other disabled people in the community, and, as they proudly assert, act as a watchdog with teeth to ensure that disabled Utahns aren't deprived of their rights.

Focusing on three broad areas -- physical accessibility, health-care and housing -- DRAC identifies problems and uses a combination of publicity and legal action to eliminate them. Volunteers, for example, check out reports of inaccessible public accommodations (forbidden under the Americans With Disabilities Act), then send a warning to the management insisting on corrective action within 30 days. Failure to reply yields a second notice, and if it's ignored, DRAC's activists roll in with picket signs or legal writs -- or both.

They've used this technique effectively to make the region's Top Stop convenience stores accessible, for example; and Barbara Toomer's favorite bagel shop. They've lobbied in concert with other local groups for Medicaid funding and regulatory changes, and they've demonstrated and filed suits to ensure accessibility in affordable housing and, currently, to oppose rent increases in a low-income housing complex that would drive Section 8 recipients -- including many disabled people receiving SSI and SSDI benefits -- out of their homes.

With 300 disabled Utahns on the group's mailing list and more joining every week, Toomer said, it's easy to muster 15 or 20 activists every time a demonstration is called for; and that's building the group a serious reputation as a force to be reckoned with.

"A lot of us are over 50, and we don't want to see another generation grow up in an inaccessible place," she said. "We've got the law, and it doesn't make any sense not to use it."

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