LEADERSHIP CORNER
Accessibility beneficial to more than those with disabilities
Interviewed by David Butts
Advertiser Staff Writer
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Organization: Hawaii Centers for Independent Living
Title: Executive director since January 2003
Age: 52
High school: Sterling in Sterling, Colo.
College: University of Northern Colorado, master's in vocational rehabilitation counseling.
Life-changing event: "About 20 years ago, I had always worked with people with disabilities and all of a sudden I found myself being a person with a disability ... multiple sclerosis. ... It gives you a whole different perspective."
Little-known fact: Working her way through college as a waitress, Lockwood received her biggest tip when Dick Van Dyke and Milton Berle ate at her restaurant. "I ended up splitting it with all the other waitresses ... and still went home with a large amount of money."
Major challenge: Making the nonprofit more entrepreneurial.
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Q. How many people have disabilities in Hawai'i and what programs do you offer?
A. About 20 percent of the population. We help people get the services they need to have access to and be included in the community. That can range from teaching someone how to ride the bus to work, to helping somebody work out a problem with their Social Security.
Q. What do you say to business owners who think it's too expensive to provide access for people with disabilities?
A. One of the things the ADA (Americans With Disabilities Act) said is that instead of having one big cost borne by a few people, we need to spread the wealth. If you go along Waikiki right now, there are wonderful curb cuts. Waikiki and that whole area downtown have wonderful accessibility.
And if you look wherever you see a ramp and a door opener, the majority of people who use it aren't people with disabilities. They are people who are pushing a stroller, or their arms are full of packages so they hit the door opener. That's what the ADA is about, creative access. Maybe you put it there because the law says you had to put it there, but all of your customers are benefiting. Plus the ADA says if anything causes an undue financial burden to the business, you don't have to do it. Most accommodations aren't real expensive.
Q. The Americans With Disabilities Act is sometimes seen as a source of frivolous lawsuits against small businesses.
A. We don't believe in suing people over access.
We call it drive-by litigation. There are lawyers who come into the state. They go around and they find a problem. They find somebody to file a lawsuit. The business gets mad. The lawyer makes a lot of money, and the client makes a little money.
Because of that, we have people trying to take away the ADA right now and change it because small businesses are being sued. I find it amazing that nobody is talking about changing the lawyers.
We believe we need to educate people about the issues. There are a large number of people in the state that have disabilities. Do you want to exclude them from your business or include them as customers? If you want to include them as customers, how can you make it work? Then it makes much more sense. ...
I don't think litigation affects long-term change. Sure, if you refuse to provide something that you are required to by law, we will do everything we can to right the situation, but we are not going to sue them.
Q. Why do you say your nonprofit needs to be more entrepreneurial?
A. I believe that nonprofits need to develop an alternative source of funding other than federal grants and private grants and foundations. They need to find a type of business that fits in with the model of their organization that they can develop within the community that can provide a firm financial foundation to the agency.
Q. What's an example of a way you could earn money and stay true to your organization's mission?
A. Where I came from in Montana (Lockwood was executive director of an independent living program there for seven years), we became a self-directed personal assistance agency. We go into the homes of people with disabilities, not to provide nursing care, but to provide personal care like bathing, dressing, cooking meals. ...
When we started the business, all of the personal assistants were paid minimum wage or about $5.45 an hour. When I left, our personal assistants were making $8.50 an hour and we were bringing in between half a million and three-quarters of a million dollars in wages that we were putting back out into the community. The clients hired and fired their own personal assistants and we became the payroll agent.
We took the excess revenue from that part of the operation and used it to fund the independent living program. It provided us some unrestricted revenue that gave the center a firm financial base.
That's what eventually we are going to try to do here. We are looking for different kinds of business opportunities ... so if our money gets cut from the federal government or from one of our funding sources, we still have a basis to work from.
We may be a nonprofit, but we have to run like a business.
Q. How effective is the personal assistance program?
A. There was a gentleman with Lou Gehrig's disease and he lived 20 miles from his nearest neighbor out in a little town in eastern Montana. He had always been a rancher and a farmer and he did not want to move away from his family to a nursing home. We helped him train his neighbors' kids to be his caregivers. He lived at home until about 48 hours before he died. His wife always said to me, he lived as long as he did because he could get up in the morning and see the fields. He managed the farm. He was able to maintain his dignity.
If we hadn't had this program he would have been in a nursing home and he would have not been able to see his kids go to high school and do all the things he was able to do.
Q. What is the danger of accepting charity if you are disabled?
A. When you have a disability you are given a lot, but you don't get a chance to contribute. ... People start making decisions for you. It's very easy to fall into the mold where people can take care of you. Our job is to come in and say, you need to take that power back. You need to see where you can regain control in your life.
It's that whole idea of helping people get access to the society and helping them discover that they don't need to be a charity case.
