while New Jersey seniors and disabled residents will have more options for getting around soon a new law signed by Governor Murphy last week is expanding New Jersey transit's Riders Choice pilot program so that people who use Access Link which has been criticized for years as being unreliable can instead opt for a taxi an Uber or a lift it's one way the state is trying to lift barriers for vulnerable residents that was the focus of a Rutgers event this week educating the public about the rights of people with disabilities and the challenges they face Raven Santana reports generally speaking we need to do a better job as a society in educating people that you know people with disabilities have rights in this country Javier Robles who relies on his wheelchair to get around didn't hold back when I asked him what else can be done to better Empower people with disabilities where are we in terms of your perspective when it comes to disability rights in terms of my perspective obviously we've come a long way in terms of legal rights like the Americans with Disabilities Act or Section 504 but you know what we saw during the pandemic which you know you guys have covered pretty extensively when it comes to people with disabilities um maybe we haven't come as far as we should right we saw that we as a state and as a nation were not prepared that people with disabilities um were left behind more often than not the Rutgers professor and director of the center for disability Sports health and wellness at at the University moderated a panel to Mark disability awareness month the panel which was also available virtually focused on the critical issues impacting those with disabilities it included diverse voices from Disability Advocates as well as representatives from the state who gave examples of how they're trying to advance disability rights through laws and protections I'll give a quick example of that there was some legislation earlier this year related to guardianship to move the age that parents could petition for guardianship from 18 down to 17 and a half and we really stepped in there and helped educate the legislature on why that was um really detrimental to people with disabilities that before they had even reached the age of majority before they could retain an attorney for themselves to defend their right to self-determination um you were already subjecting them to guardianship proceedings throughout the discussion access to services and housing discrimination proved to be a constant issue impacting individuals with disabilities New Jersey has a great law against discrimination we really need to see it enforced um much more stringently so we're really hoping that the the state as they begin to have programs like this they're really working hard to to make sure that our complaints are are registered they are they are taken care of taken seriously that's where our division comes in and we've been focused in a very concerted way on trying to expand our enforcement in the last couple of years Sundeep Iyer director of the New Jersey Division on civil rights says the agency has seen an increasing number of complaints alleging discrimination by housing providers whether it's because they're denying rental opportunities to People based on disability whether it's because there is um tenant on tenant harassment of a tenant with disabilities and the housing provider doesn't take meaningful action to address it whether it's that the housing provider has failed to provide a reasonable accommodation for someone's disability whether it's by providing um appropriate access to uh their apartment there's definitely a lot of room for improvement let's take Transportation as an example in New Jersey if you are not near a a New Jersey Transit uh Transportation line you for the most part probably don't have access to Transportation either through Access Link or some other ways which means that you can't get to work you can't get to appointments you can't even just go out and have a fun time so transportation is one huge issue for people with disabilities and we need to do a better job just preparing you know we're not prepared if an emergency happen we don't even know how we could get people from point A to point B as an example robl stressed during the conversation that the goal of the workshop was to raise awareness and educate everyone on the barriers that individuals with disabilities have he says it will ultimately take a advocacy from everyone able-bodied individuals included to ensure an equitable future for people with disabilities frie Spotlight news I'm Raven Santana [Music]