As baby boomers age and the number of the nation's disabled grows by millions, access barriers to public services will become even more glaring, disability advocates say. Those born between 1946 and 1964 comprise the largest demographic population in the United States.
A three-month Times investigation sampled dozens of region businesses, public buildings and shopping districts, revealing at least 70 barriers to access for the area's disabled.
The barriers, some of which directly contradict the Americans with Disabilities Act, will become more unacceptable to society as increasing numbers of aging people find themselves in wheelchairs or suffer from other mobility ailments, said Suellen Jackson-Bonner, executive director for the Indiana Governor's Council for People with Disabilities.
A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study released earlier this year shows that 47.5 million U.S. adults reported having disabilities in 2005, up by 3.4 million people from 1999.
"More people will be looking for changes so that people who are aging can continue living in and enjoying their communities," Jackson-Bonner said. "Aging and related disabilities are going to become a bigger issue."
The most common disabilities included difficulty walking more than three city blocks and ascending stairs. The Centers for Disease Control report stated that more than one in 10 adults reporting a disability had "trouble walking a distance equal to walking from the parking lot to the back of a large store or through a mall."
The CDC also concluded that as many baby boomers ages 45 to 64 are affected by disabilities as those 65 and older.
"Given the size of the baby-boom generation, the number of adults with disability is likely to increase dramatically as the baby boomers enter into higher-risk age groups over the next 20 years," the study states.
That change may exert pressure on the region's and nation's private and public sectors to tear down access barriers, including high curbs, high doorway thresholds and bathrooms unusable by people in wheelchairs, said Teresa Torres, executive director of Merrillville-based Everybody Counts, a disability advocacy agency.
"Almost 20 years later, there remains a lack of recognition regarding the merits of the Americans with Disabilities Act by many people and businesses who ultimately would benefit by following the act, and that has to change," Torres said. "It's not a charitable thing to be accessible. It's a good business practice."
