Wash-CAP
Wash-CAP
The Washington State Communication Access Project
Enriching the World
For Those With Hearing Loss
We’ve lost some or all of our hearing. But that shouldn’t mean losing our social lives or our independence. We should be able to enjoy plays, lectures and movies, ride the ferry, catch a plane, attend a meeting, take a class or go to a restaurant with the same level of ease and enjoyment as those with full hearing.
With the cooperation of others, our loss of hearing need not mean a loss in the quality of our lives. All that is necessary is to reduce the spoken word to written form.
The good news is that the law requires that kind of cooperation, and the technology exists to make it possible. The bad news is that in reality, the cooperation that we need and that the law demands is the exception rather than the rule.
Wash-CAP intends to change that.
With your help, Wash-CAP can put us back into the world. Please join our effort.
www.wash-cap.com
www.hearinglosslaw.com
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT WASH-CAP, PLEASE READ THE REST OF THIS POST
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ABOUT WASH-CAP
1. What Is Wash-CAP?
The Washington State Communication Access Project (Wash-CAP) is a non-profit corporation whose principal purpose is to secure the civil rights of the Hard of Hearing (HOH). Both federal and state laws declare that we who are HOH have the same right to participate in public life as anyone else. But putting those laws into effect is left largely up to us, and we have been reluctant to act as individuals. Wash-CAP is an organization that will enable the HOH community to work collectively and systematically towards actually securing in practice those rights and benefits that the laws provide on paper.
2. What Are Our Rights?
State and federal laws provide that the HOH are entitled to “auxiliary aids and services” that will give us access to spoken information Those aids and services include not only amplifying devices and sign-language interpretation for those who use ASL, but also open and closed captioning. Generally, the facility at which an event occurs – the courthouse, theater or school, for example – is required to provide those aids and services. Wash-CAP wants to ensure that each facility makes the full array of aids and services available, including captioning.
3. What’s Different About Wash-CAP?
Wash-CAP’s specific emphasis is on securing the rights of the HOH community under existing laws. We complement state and national organizations that provide support, information and services to individual members of our community, and that lobby for additional protections and benefits, but we address a need that is not their primary focus. Also, our focus is not on providing ASL interpretations, but in making the spoken word accessible.
4. How Will Wash-CAP Function?
Wash-CAP starts from the premise that people will do the right thing when asked nicely and given the information they need. We begin by sharing amongst ourselves those things we’d like to do if our hearing losses weren’t an issue. Then, we contact those public facilities or entertainment venues, point out that they are failing to meet our needs, and offer expertise leading to solutions. We hope this dialogue will lead to an agreeable outcome. Should the dialogue fail, Wash-CAP will then go to court to enforce the rights of the HOH.
5. Shouldn’t State and Federal Agencies Enforce the Laws?
State and federal agencies have the power to enforce the civil rights laws, including the laws protecting those of us with physical challenges. But those agencies have limited resources. Anticipating those limitations, the laws give individuals who face barriers to access and organizations acting in their behalf the right to go to court and seek relief. Those laws provide that the complaining party can recover attorneys’ fees, which means we can claim our rights at no cost. Those fees also provide a significant source of support for Wash-CAP. Far from being a nuisance, private enforcement is an essential and intended part of the whole plan. As the Washington Supreme Court has said, a plaintiff in a discrimination claim is “vindicating state policy of the highest order.”
We’ve been given the tools. Now it’s up to us to use them. Wash-CAP gives us a way to act together to enforce individual rights for our mutual benefit.
6. Why Have An Organization?
While individual members of the HOH community could enforce their own rights, individual actions are difficult in a number of respects. Communicating about a complaint and following through with court action, if necessary, can be highly stressful for the individual. A successful individual effort often leads to a settlement that benefits only the particular individual. With the number of HOH individuals and the sheer number of public places in Washington, we can’t achieve broad change by working one person and one establishment at a time.
Wash-CAP addresses those problems. As an organization whose purpose includes protecting the rights and interests of its members, Wash-CAP may act on behalf of all of its members so long as even one is affected. For example, if one of our members runs into a hearing access problem at a particular theater, Wash-CAP, in its own name, will make contact, offer to help and, as a last resort, bring court action to address that problem not just for that particular member, but for all of us.
By acting as an organization, Wash-CAP takes the burden off the individual, brings about outcomes that apply to everyone, and provides an ongoing entity to monitor and enforce settlements.
7. How Can Wash-CAP Help Me?
As a statewide organization, Wash-CAP can address problems confronted by any of its members, but we cannot deal with a situation unless it directly affects at least one member. That’s why we’ve made joining easy – it costs nothing, and requires only an email request.
By joining Wash-CAP, we can help each other make all our lives better.
Who Is Wash-CAP?
Wash-CAP’s founder and advocacy director is John Waldo, a Bainbridge Island attorney. Before moving to Washington, John spent two decades practicing law in Utah and Texas, concentrating on complex litigation.
John has an intensely personal interest in the legal rights of the HOH. He has a moderate-severe binaural hearing loss, wears hearing aids, and like all of us in the HOH community, functions in the hearing world by employing a variety of coping strategies. John fully understands not only the barriers we face, but how greatly our lives could be enriched by the removal or at least the lowering of those barriers.
In addition to his work with Wash-CAP, John advocates for the unique legal needs of individuals who are HOH or Deaf in areas such as education, employment or public or private insurance matters.
Join Wash-CAP
It’s Easy and Free!
Ready to help make your life and all of our lives better? Send an email to john@wash-cap.com with the word "membership" in the subject line. We’ll follow up with a brief questionnaire asking about you and about the access issues you confront. That’s all there is to it. Then check back on this website, and follow along as Wash-CAP enriches all of our lives.
More info: www.wash-cap.com
www.hearinglosslaw.com
Legal Rights of Those
With Hearing Losses
“The right to be free from discrimination because of … any sensory, mental or physical disability … is recognized and declared as a civil right. This right shall include … the right to the full enjoyment of … any place of public resort, accommodation, assemblage or amusement.”
Washington Law Against Discrimination
“No qualified individual with a disability shall, by reason of such disability, be excluded from participation in or be denied the benefits, services or programs of a public entity.”
Americans With Disabilities Act, Title II
“No individual shall be discriminated against on the basis of disability in the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages or accommodations of any place of public accommodation.”
Americans With Disabilities Act, Title III
Let’s turn these ideals into reality. Join Wash-CAP today … for all of us.
Membership is free. Just send an email asking for membership to:
john@wash-cap.com
