This is the Market Street Inn which is
located in downtown Salisbury. When the
building was constructed in 1940, there
was no ramp at the front entrance.
Since then, laws have changed and the
establishment is now legally obligated
to be accessible to people with
disabilities. The name of the legislation
responsible for this is the Americans
with Disabilities Act, also known as the
ADA. Rob Mulford, owner of the Market
Street Inn, talks about how the ADA has
impacted him.
The hard part with this
building is where the building was built in 1940
there's a lot of things that have to be
modified or can't exactly work to
spec because the building's just so
old you can't move anything.
The ADA was a major piece of legislation passed
in 1990 to improve the lives of citizens
with disabilities. It consists of four
sections called titles. Title one forbids
employers from discriminating against
employees with disabilities.
Title two requires that all public
services be available to individuals
with disabilities. Title three mandates
that buildings be accessible and free of
obstructions Title four addresses
telecommunications needs of people with
hearing and speech impairments. This
legislation has helped a large number of
Americans. According to the 2010 Census,
nearly one of every five Americans has a
disability - that's 56.7 million people.
Bringing a building up to code with ADA can be a very expensive and difficult task.
The ramp outside is very complicated and
very hard to try to make it to work. It
it really is weird because the way the
building is built, and the way the
sidewalks are, the building actually goes
up then down so the ramp was put in to
try to make it so people could come up
to get into the building but it made it hard
because all I really own is the building.
But what happens when a state-owned
institution needs to upgrade its
infrastructure? Throughout the campus of
Salisbury University there are some
buildings that are inaccessible to
people who are disabled.
The oldest building on campus,
Holloway Hall, was built in 1925. While some
additions have been made to improve its
accessibility, is still difficult for a
wheelchair to get into the Great Hall.
The interior entrance has a small set of
stairs and the west entrance has a
wooden ramp that is not anchored down.
The southern entrance does have a ramp,
but the door leads to is usually locked
it has to be open from inside.
Fortunately, the university is already
aware of the problem. Eric Berkheimer is
the Associate Vice President for
Facilities and Capital Management,
the department that is responsible for
overseeing building construction and modification.
There is a state agency for
disabilities and they have a program
called Access Maryland where state
agencies can apply for grants to make
building accessible. It's sort of
something that we've done, we've created
a transition plan for campus which then
is a comprehensive survey all
over campus every building all the sites
looking at where are we accessible where
aren't we
prioritizing where we're not, and
submitting those as projects to Access
Maryland for potential funding. We've put
in grant applications for up to about
$75,000
for those ramps. The elevator is much more just
because of the nature, again, that's one
where the cab size is not large enough,
so literally having to expand walls, move
walls to make a large enough shaft and obviously that's a very expensive project to do
Berkheimer is also overseeing a current
major project on campus, the construction
of the Academic Commons.
One of the unique aspects of this
building is that it actually has many
entrances. It actually has kind of three main
entries, so each one of those entrances
needs to be accessible because of its
site on campus, being in the heart of the
campus, certainly we wanted to make sure that
every location was was easily accessible.
To help out with building compliance, you
don't have to be an architect. You can do
your part by simply notifying the proper
people. Roland Scheck is an active member
in the Salisbury community and attends
meetings of the German club at Salisbury
University. Roland became disabled while
serving in the Vietnam War.
I lost my leg in Vietnam on the 15th of May. It was all
my pilot's fault. He just couldn't say no
and if you're in the same helicopter you're
going where he's going and I get shot
in the arm, I got shot in the chest and
like I say, once too often on the 15th
of May they shot me down and I was left
in the LZ with helicopter burning. But
he got out on another helicopter and
just before nightfall, in the evening, I
knew I was going to be out there with
three guys with handguns - we had handguns for
weapons because the machine guns on the
helicopter had burnt up and just before
nightfall far, far away we heard it - whoop whoop whoop whoop whoopa
He came back for us in another helicopter.
After serving his country, Scheck was an
employee of the US Postal Service. While
he was there, he noticed that the
buildings didn't have ramps for people
who use wheelchairs.
If I got word that some postmaster was giving his people a
hard time I would go to and file the
grievance necessary
and then if they wouldn't give, then
also told them, 'If you don't give into
this grievance I'm going to file a grievance
because you post office is not handicapped
accessible, and then you're going to have
$1500 to $2000 repair bill on your hands.'
Scheck also observed that his local church, St.
Francis DeSales, was inaccessible.
Up here, St. Francis DeSales, they didn't really want to put those expensive ramps in there, and I
don't want to take credit for them being
there now, it took other people besides
myself, but they have complied.
Rob Mulford of Market Street Inn explain how a
patron helped him to rectify an issue
with his establishment.
People have come in over the years and actually, it was a girl that... her name is Joanna and she gets
around here and I actually went to
school with her in 1987 at SU, so she's
come in and kind of made comments over
the years but, she was more to be like,
'Hey, this is what you need to do and this
is how you want to do' and she's... she can
be very very picky but since I went to
school with her it's kind of... you take it and
it sheds some light on some different areas
you didn't know. Like for years
what I had in here there was not grab
bars in the bathroom and that was
something that was added around 2005 and
I already had the building for three or
four years and was unaware that.
Becoming compliant can be pricy and may take
some time to accomplish yet with
patience the building can be renovated
and become accessible to people who are
disabled. For more information you can
visit our website adabuildingcomp.weebly.com
In Salisbury, I am Tim DeLuise, reporting.
