[4] The Birth of BarrierFreeChoices:

Years ago, shortly after the passage of the ADA, those of us who were to become the nucleus of BarrierFreeChoices observed that despite the passage of the ADA, not all businesses and professional offices were accessible. We also realized that, despite the law, many businesses might never be made accessible (i.e., businesses situated in "historic" or inconvenient locations); and that bad attitudes of some toward their customers with disabilities might take a long time to change.

Because the ADA obviously couldn't possibly guarantee "equal access" for all people with a wide variety of disabilities in all situations, we saw a desperate need for some sort of information service to help individuals with disabilities find places to go that would be accessible for them.

Our first move was to contact the ADA Division of the Justice Department directly with a proposal that the Federal Government fund and provide just such an information service. We even volunteered our professional expertise to help set up such a service.

But our proposal was immediately rejected.

Although our contact person at the ADA told us that our proposal was a great idea in principle, he also told us that the Government "just can't get involved with a project like that, because that would be illegal!" He explained this by adding "The Government can't appear to recommend one business or organization over another, because that would be showing favoritism. And getting involved in any way would put us in the position of breaking some of the same laws we're supposed to enforce."

We attempted to explain that over the years we had been involved in the production of hundreds of advertising-supported publications and other projects for numerous organizations and government agencies at all levels, and that such a project as we proposed [a] would be reasonably easy to put together; [b] was absolutely not "illegal"; and [c] would ultimately be at minimal cost to the taxpayers, since once the project was set up, its obvious value to the business community would quickly make such a project totally self-sufficient, and most likely even profitable ... similar to the Postal Service.

But the "ADA Man" wasn't interested in listening to our group for long.

He abruptly ended our meeting, stating arrogantly that: "We already put the ADA laws in place for you people, and we think we've already done enough for you people. And it's up to disabled people to find their own way in life." So we people left quietly that day before he threw us out.

Over the next year or so, we tried running the same idea past several State and Municipal Government agencies, and received a similar response from each and every "disability services" office we contacted. Somehow, everybody we talked to thought that our proposal was a wonderful idea, but nobody wanted to get involved. They just didn't have sufficient manpower, or sufficient budget ... or whatever other excuse they could muster.

However, they all thought somebody should do it. And pretty soon, it became obvious that it was up to the private sector to solve the problem. So eventually that's what we did.

And that's what BarrierFreeChoices does. BarrierFreeChoices was created to be a practical lifestyle solution for many different people with many different kinds of disabilities who just want to live their everyday life and do normal everyday things in a barrier-free environment that they can handle — without being marginalized and treated as sub-human freaks.

At BFC, we deal every day with extremely important accessibility issues that the ADA cannot, does not, has not, and probably never will be able to address!

Although the Americans with Disabilities Act has been generally helpful to the disability community over the years, such legislation is always a balancing act. And in enforcing such laws, the ADA Administration has to maintain a balance between protecting the rights of people with disabilities AND protecting the rights of the business and professional community.

And even though the Law might be (and has been) a great help in establishing and defining "accessibility standards" generally, such laws are of little practical use in the immediate sense to someone who happens to have a disability and who just wants to go shopping, or go to church, or go out and get something to eat in a venue that is truly accessible for them.

Creating (or amending) any Law requires compromise. This is especially true of all "Civil Rights" legislation. As Congress tries to help one group of people achieve a greater measure of equal treatment, whatever that may be at a given moment in history, those individuals who serve in Congress also must try to avoid stomping too hard on other people's rights.

Legislators have often had to walk a tightrope, trying to [a] "do the right thing"; [b] still get themselves re-elected; and [c] not get themselves lynched by those among our population who might oppose the intent of their efforts.

Consequently, politicians hoping to stay in office (regardless of their particular viewpoint or party affiliation) try to weigh the needs and wishes of all the various special-interest groups that may be affected by proposed legislation, and try to find some sort of a "balance" that will more or less satisfy everybody involved somewhat, without antagonizing anybody too far.

The result of this process is usually pretty good "common sense" legislation, even though it doesn't give anybody everything they want, and probably never will.

So the only way disabled consumers can truly feel safe and confident is to have reliable and uncompromised information beforehand so they can know that a particular store or restaurant or Church or professional office will be accessible for them.

That's the service BFC provides. And that's how (and why) BarrierFreeChoices was born.