Issue link: https://tmcpulse.uberflip.com/i/998534
8 T M C » P U L S E | J U LY 2 0 1 8 University of Tulsa in the parking lot because I couldn't get up the steps of the building and into his office. He said to me: 'See the building across the campus there? That's the first building we have built in about 15 years. It will be ready for the fall semester. It's got a level entrance and an ele- vator in it.' I asked him what they taught there and he said, 'Biology.' I said, 'Sorry, that's not my deal.' He said, 'Wait a minute. Take the catalogue, tell me what you want to take and those classes will be in that building.' It was such a simple solution and that experience was actually incorporated into the plans we made for the ADA. The ADA says you don't have to rebuild your building, but you have to find relatively inexpensive, simple ways to do things if you can. Q | What was your first taste of advocacy work? A | In 1978, we proposed that the city's transit system, HouTran, should be accessible by people who use wheelchairs, by people who use baby carriages and by people who are older and have difficulty walking. At that time, no transit system in the country had those kinds of facilities. The mayor at the time, James Fred Hofheinz, wanted the transit system to be better used, so he offered free rides all day on Saturday to encourage people to try public transit. So, we got about 40 people in wheelchairs to go down to City Hall, where he was going to ride the bus, and line up with him to have our free bus rides. Of course, the bus came, and we were all waiting to get on. Some of our colleagues got out of their wheelchairs and got down on the ground and started dragging themselves up the stairs of the bus. The press was just having a field day. That was kind of our first public advocacy action to bring attention to the need for accom- modations for people with disabilities. Q | How did you find your way back to Houston? A | I met a professor while I was at TIRR who taught at the University of Houston and I wrote and asked him if they had a graduate school program I would be able to participate in. He invited me to come there and also told me about a program that TIRR was starting that would provide housing for former patients and support services—attendant care. It was set up to be a community living arrangement where the resi- dents managed their own facility. Logic pointed to Houston and I came here in 1972. Living in that place with other people who shared the same experiences is where we began to talk about how to change the world. What do we need to be full participants? Obviously, access, transportation and recreation. Q | How did you meet your wife, Joyce? A | She was a patient at TIRR. At the time, I was putting together the bylaws for the Houston Coalition for Barrier Free Living and I needed somebody to type. I couldn't type fast enough. I saw this woman in a wheelchair, kind of attractive, in the hall one day and I asked her if she could help me type. She came to my house and helped me type that stuff up. Then we got a rain—a Houston rain—and I told her: 'You can't leave here. You'll drown trying to get home. I'll stay up all night and you can lay in the bed.' She said: 'No, I can't get in your bathroom.' I had never widened the doorway, but my neighbor came over and knocked that wall down. Joyce stayed that night. We've been married for 40 years now. I'm glad to have a wife and a daughter and grandson and a soon-to-be granddaughter-in-law. Q | We are sitting in Houston's Metropolitan Multi-Service Center, an adaptive sports and recreational facility for people with disabilities. How was this space created and what does the center mean to you? A | This center was conceived by a group of former TIRR patients in 1978. I went with my wife, Joyce, on television—the KHOU Channel 11 morning show—and introduced this idea that Houston should be the most accessible city in the world. People would come from all over the world to TIRR, and why shouldn't the city complement the medical center? We thought there should be a place where people with disabilities could go and meet and exercise and play basketball and swim and enjoy. There wasn't any place. There were no parks in Houston with accessible playgrounds, there were no swimming pools that had ramps in them and no basketball courts reserved for wheel- chair basketball players. It was a novel idea. It took 10 years to get this thing built, then it became a national symbol. It was the first time that federal dollars had been used with city dollars to build a fully accessible center for people with disabilities. Because of that, members of Congress, when they were having hearings prior to the ADA, came to Houston and sat in that big auditorium. Some said this was going to cost cities and schools a lot of money to make everything accessible and the Houston leadership said they should do it anyway. It was significant because, at that point, the ADA was not a foregone conclusion. Q | What are some of the challenges Houston continues to face in serving people with disabilities? A | Right now, we have huge opportunities in Houston because of Mayor Sylvester Turner and the City Council. Metro now has a plan to make all 9,000 transit stops accessible to people with disabilities, but that plan has a bad wrinkle: Before you can use the transit stop, you have to be able to get there. The city doesn't have sidewalks all over because there is a city ordinance that says the sidewalks have to be maintained by each property owner. When property owners choose not to make their sidewalks accessible or choose not to connect them to the Metro stop, we have a problem. This is an opportunity. I'm not sure what the solution will be, but there has to be a solution. It's silly for us to have this investment in the infra- structure, all the buses accessible and all the stops accessible and, yet, some people can't get down the sidewalk to get to the stop. Q | Have there been any other defining moments in your advocacy work? A | In January of 1986, I met with then-Vice President George H.W. Bush about the ADA. He supported what we were doing, but reminded me that he was just the vice president and as soon as he had the chance to do more, he would. A couple of years ago, he had a meeting in downtown Houston and he was in a wheelchair at this point. They couldn't park near the building because of construction. They got him out, pushed him down the street, down the curb, across the street, down the ramp and down the next block. After that, he said to me: 'Am I really responsible for making those ramps on the sidewalk?' I said: 'Yes, sir, you are. You signed the law.' He said: 'That worked out pretty well, didn't it?' Lex Frieden was interviewed by Pulse staff writer Britni R. McAshan. The conversation was edited for clarity and length. Spotlight We thought there should be a place where people with disabilities could go and meet and exercise and play basketball and swim and enjoy. There wasn't any place. There were no parks in Houston with accessible playgrounds, there were no swimming pools that had ramps in them and no basketball courts reserved for wheelchair basketball players.