Barriers to work confront disabled

More than 14 million adults in the U.S. have some
disability that limits their ability to work.

MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Joe Steffy’s double diagnosis of Down syndrome and autism made him unemployable in some minds. His father, Ray Steffy, disagreed.

The Steffy family created Poppin Joe’s, a kettle corn-popping company based at their Louisburg, Kan., home. Joe Steffy is the proprietor, head popper and chief merchandiser.

“My intent was to create something for Joe so that he could be a part of the community,” the father said of his nonverbal 21-year-old son. “It worked. He’s part of the community. People call him Poppin Joe when they see his tent at a Wal-Mart or Hy-Vee or a festival.”

Ryan Farley, 25, also has developmental disabilities. He works at an AMC Theatre in Leawood, Kan., where he has been on the payroll for five years.

“I like taking the tickets and wiping the shelves and cleaning the floors,” Farley said of the only job experience he has known.

Farley, who walks to the theater from a nearby apartment, started working at AMC through a job experience program. When he aged out of the school program, he kept working, thanks to AMC’s longstanding commitment to hiring workers with disabilities.

“We identify roles in the operation that they’re comfortable with,” said Dan Glennon, the Leawood theater’s general manager. “We look for the fine line between challenging them and alienating them. We want it to be successful for everyone.”

Steffy and Farley are two of about 14.3 million U.S. adults who have some level of mental, or cognitive, disability that limits their ability to work, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. They also are part of a larger group — about 51.2 million people — who have some level of disability: physical, mental or emotional.

But Steffy and Farley also are among the fortunate 28.7 million — about 56 percent of the 51.2 million — who held a paying job at some point last year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Many other would-be workers with disabilities, particularly those with mental disabilities, are on waiting lists for job-finding assistance or are stuck in frustrating searches for work they can do. The unemployment rate of people with work-limiting disabilities similar to Steffy’s and Farley’s is 70 percent to 80 percent of that population.

“I can do the work, but it’s hard to get employers to consider me. It’s hard to get through their interview process,” said Scott Wade, a 48-year-old Kansas City man diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism, who is looking for a medical-records or similar computer-entry job.

“I’m good at science and technical things, but my communication skills aren’t good,” Wade said. “That makes it hard to get through the interview barriers.”

Employment barriers for people with disabilities are many. They can be physical, mental or emotional.

Barriers exist because of their inability to perform tasks or because a workplace environment isn’t suited to them or because transportation isn’t available.

Other barriers are financial, the result of government and business budgets that make it hard to access support services that would allow the work to be done.

Many barriers are attitudinal, born of discomfort or faulty assumptions about what people with disabilities can or can’t do.

“It’s a challenge,” said Willetta Proctor, a human resource professional for Johnson County, Kan., who volunteers on the workforce readiness committee of the Human Resource Management Association. “Many supervisors have lots of fears, for whatever reason, about hiring persons with disabilities.”

Steve Hamilton, owner of Chris Cakes, a pancake catering company, worked with Johnson County Developmental Supports to hire four people with disabilities when he opened a restaurant in Leawood earlier this year.

“Unfortunately, I had to let them go after a few weeks,” he said. “It hurt. It’s a great program, but they could only work weekdays, not weekends, when I needed them. They couldn’t multitask, and I needed people who could. As a startup, I had to watch my budget. It was a really tough decision, but I had to do it for now.”