Nine months of trying to figure out what to do, and there had been some things that had changed, one had been my awards and work.

As a disabled advocate I have been working on different projects and there had been some more activity intensive then others. I put in a lot of hours even when it doesn’t help my position for the simple fact that it may, and that may sometimes does pan out. It became clear that a lot of things are not what they seem. Where I work is now in the community college and even with differences of opinion, I have found it to be a welcoming place for different opinions and intelligent conversation.

Are there some bad eggs? In a major group of people you are bound to have at least one, because the gods of the odds dictate it. I do think we do well for the amount of people we have we are at least somewhat better than the odds.

What bothers me with work is that sometimes you realize the talk about the state or the city being so good working with disabled people is not as true as it should be. Which it isn’t so bad if it just needs to be fixed, but it is aggravating when buildings need to be made ADA compliant, or how people avoid being fined because their insurance wanted to wait out people who didn’t have money.

One person at PSU had been called an autistic snowflake by a teacher who had not believed she was a democrat when he was, and another person walking with a cane had a toilet crumble under him while the insurance and the school just let him sit in a room for hours forgetting about him. Both brought their cases up but the insurance said they had investigated themselves and that the school did nothing wrong, or that they would not pay for it.

That is the kind of thing I hear about time after time, and I have found the insurance company PSU uses to be the biggest group of bigots I have seen in quite a long time. It is aggravating, except unfortunately lawyers also do not want to face the school, or they already work closely enough that they are unable to be talked to. Another person had their wheelchair damaged by a faculty member slamming a door and the insurance said the wheelchair was too weak for use.

That sort of thing is very difficult to advertise in favor of the university for, and especially when for the student government to support you have to be part of the club or get forgotten. It makes it difficult to be an advocate when the people you try to look at for are being lied to because for a university the size of Portland State, they can make those changes very easily but choose not to.

Nine months has been a lot to learn from but the worst part is when you are powerless to help, but what can you do, but try to make the most out of learning the problems even when no one will hear it.

Has there been a time that at your job it seemed to be the same that you would not be heard despite it being your job? How did you handle that?

Stay Strong.