Justin's Case

by Justin Linn

Hello, my name is Justin Linn. I am 13 3/4 years old. I currently attend Austin Meehan Middle School in Northeast Philadelphia. I am writing you today to get something done about places and events that are not wheelchair accessible. I have Spinal Muscular Atrophy, which requires me to be in a wheelchair for life. I have been in the wheelchair for five years. I get very angry when I cannot go somewhere with my friends and family, because the places or events are not wheelchair accessible. I have gone through this problem since I have been in a wheelchair, and I am tired of going through it. I want something done for me and everyone who has this problem, whether they are elderly, temporarily disabled or permanently disabled.

I want to explain to you some of the things that I have gone through because of non-accessible places or events. The first thing I want to tell you about are trips that I could not attend with my class because the destination was not accessible and the school could not get a wheelchair-accessible bus that could transport me. The next thing I want to talk about is SEPTA.

I never rely on SEPTA. The reason I say this is because after shopping with my family I was stranded outside while waiting for a bus to come with a wheelchair lift that worked. Once, at the Franklin Mills Mall, my mother and I tried get on a SEPTA bus and the lift didn't work, so another came, same problem, and another came, same problem. Finally after three buses that couldn't transport me, one came that could. I suggest you look at the SEPTA elevators. You will see that the majority of them do not work. One day my family and I wanted take a train to the Pennsylvania Convention Center, so we called SEPTA to see what we had to do to get me there. We spoke to a SEPTA employee, who said the closest elevator was at the Margaret-Orthodox station and explained the elevator there was broken. The SEPTA employee said the nearest one with a working elevator was at Erie and Torresdale. That was too far for me to go in my wheelchair, so my family and I decided not to go. This happened to me before at the Cecil B. Moore subway stop. We got off the train and went to the elevator and it had a piece of paper on the elevator door that said "out of service." My stepdad had to carry me up a flight of stairs while another helpful person carried my wheelchair up the steps. There has to be something SEPTA can do to fix these problems.

I would also like to comment on the school district of Philadelphia. There are very few wheelchair-accessible schools in Philadelphia. I applied to a few high schools, and I could not go to two of them because they were not accessible, so I was limited in my choices. In the 2000-2001 school year, I tried to register for school after moving from New Jersey, and the Philadelphia school district said they had to find a school that was accessible, so we waited. It took about two months to find one. The time I was out of school was important, and I missed it. It makes no sense that just because I am disabled I have to go through this.

If I want to go to a corner store to get a snack, I have to ask a friend to go in the store for me because there are stairs to enter the store. It wouldn't take much to make a ramp so that I could enter. If everyone else can do these things without a problem, then I shouldn't have a problem either. Once or twice I tried to get in a store, and there was a double-door entrance. One door was locked, and without it opened, I could not enter because of my wheelchair. I asked the owner kindly if he could open up the other half of the door and he said no. I got very angry and sad because of this. How hard is it to put a key in the hole and open the door? I want something to be done about these problems very quickly. When these incidents come up, it makes me and probably everyone else that goes through these problems very mad, sad and left out. I hope these problems can be fixed soon.

Thank you.

Justin Linn is a student at Austin Meehan Middle School. If you would like to respond to this Slant or have one of your own (850 words), contact Howard Altman, City Paper executive editor, 123 Chestnut St., third floor, Phila., PA 19106 or e-mail altman@citypaper.net.




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