Hey, mayoral candidates: What about the needs of disabled residents?

When Maria Quiñones Sánchez dropped out of the candidate-heavy mayor’s race April 9, as the only Latinx candidate, she said:

“Latinos are 18% of this city, and none of the candidates have been speaking to them, and I felt it was my responsibility as I exit to challenge all of the candidates to really speak to that community.”

As a member of one of Philadelphia’s largest minority groups, Quiñones Sánchez’s statement resonated with me. I haven’t heard any of the many Democratic candidates for mayor even mention my community or what they would do to better serve it.

I am speaking of the one in six Philadelphians who are disabled — though the number is likely far more. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one in four U.S. adults has a disability — related to mobility, vision, hearing, or cognition, for instance — that impacts major life activities, such as working or getting around.

The needs of disabled residents should be particularly important in Philadelphia, which has the highest disability rate of the largest U.S. cities; 22% of Philadelphians living in poverty are also disabled.

Do any of the mayoral candidates know these stats or have a disability platform? When I searched for data on where candidates stand on disability issues or disability rights, I found nothing.

Many of the current candidates have mentioned Philadelphia’s pothole problem in their ads. Millionaire Allan Domb even has an ad where he’s driving over potholes for effect. But what about Philly’s curb cuts? How many mayoral candidates know that Philadelphia was sued in 2019 under the Americans with Disabilities Act for having terrible curb-cut access? The ADA was, by then, almost 30 years old, and the suit alleged that the city had still not managed to comply with the law that its sidewalks be accessible to people with disabilities.

With only $3.2 million annually budgeted for ramps at the time of the lawsuit, it was determined that it would take 170 years to address the approximately 72,000 that needed to be replaced.

The suit was finally settled in October with an agreement requiring the city to build or remediate at least 10,000 curb cuts over the next 15 years.

Fifteen years. A disabled child on my block will have graduated college by the time our curb cuts are fixed.

A disabled child on my block will have graduated college by the time our curb cuts are fixed.

The problem is not just curb cuts. It’s access everywhere. The ADA has been law since 1990, but for many Philadelphians, it’s as if it never happened. It’s restaurants and venues that are supposedly accessible that have steps at the entrance. Or have inaccessible restrooms. When the Wilma Theatre opened on Broad Street after years of being in an inaccessible site on Sansom Street, it was crushing to discover people in wheelchairs were relegated to limited seating in the back row because of steps throughout the auditorium. And at my first visit to the Kimmel Center, I had to be carried to my seat and my wheelchair left a half-floor away because my seat was not accessible, even though my spouse had been told it would be when the tickets were bought. It was a frightening and humiliating experience.

Disability is rarely addressed during elections. While Democratic and even some Republican candidates seem eager to respond to many historically disenfranchised groups, people with disabilities — the largest single minority group in the U.S. — are not among them.

It’s not just candidates at fault. I am sure some might talk about issues relevant to the disabled community if people asked them questions. But the media mostly ignores disability issues, and in years of covering elections as a politics reporter, I have yet to hear a debate moderator ask about disability platforms in any election forum, local or national. (I was pleased to see there was a forum Thursday for mayoral candidates on behavioral health that included intellectual disability.)

There was a flurry of media attention to disability during the 2022 midterms when then-Senate candidate John Fetterman had a stroke. There was more discourse when Fetterman was hospitalized for severe depression in February. But the tone of that conversation was largely uninformed and, in many cases, stigmatizing and judgmental.

Another element of disability rights ignored by both media and candidates alike is voter suppression of people with disabilities. Many disability rights activists hoped the pandemic and the advancement of mail-in ballots — which many disabled voters require — would change that. It has not. The GOP has discredited and lobbied against mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania and nationally. I was paralyzed in 2016, and the city lost my application for an absentee ballot; Commissioner Al Schmidt ended up coming to my house to collect another. Would I have gotten to vote in those elections without his help? Seems not.

Gun violence in the city has led to long-term disability for hundreds of Philadelphians each year. Yet too often, they are left without necessary resources such as accessible housing. Why aren’t we talking about them?

» READ MORE: If you have a program to help paralyzed gun victims and they don’t know about it, that’s a problem | Helen Ubiñas

The Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities has a vague mandate, and its voicemail directs you to the 311 helpline. The new mayor should demand improvement, expansion, and clarity for this office.

These are just some of the myriad disability issues the mayoral candidates could and should address. As yet another election looms, candidates’ silence on disability renders people with disabilities voiceless and invisible. We deserve the dignity and respect of being heard.

Victoria Brownworth is a Philadelphia journalist and writer and the editor of “Restricted Access: Lesbians on Disability” and “Coming Out of Cancer: Writings from the Lesbian Cancer Epidemic.”