Disability at the DC Budget Engagement Forum Last NIght

We needed more disability advocates at the budget engagement forum with the mayor at UDC last night!  The folks who get the most attention are the ones who show up in matching T-shirts and spread out across all the tables.   

I know many of you had turned out for the February 18 forum on Franklin Street NE, and hopefully more of you will be at the final one tomorrow morning at the Kenilworth rec center (https://www.eventbrite.com/e/mayor-muriel-bowser-presents-the-2020-budget-engagement-forums-tickets-89658337501).  I saw Andy Reese, DDS director, and Alison Whyte, DD Council executive director, there, but it’s important to have a groundswell of determined advocates who can make a lot of noise!  I've heard there was an overflow room - maybe you were there and I missed you?*

I made my views known about funding the DSP bill (see more at http://dc-coalition.org/) and about expanding eligibility for DDS disability supports to people with autism and other developmental disabilities (https://www.ddinwdc.com/search?q=expansion), both at my table and in a direct conversation with the mayor as well.  I was pleased that our issues made it into my table’s priorities and I found new allies in colleagues who care about early childhood education and immigrant rights, but I would have liked to hear other tables reporting out more on disability-related issues as well.  I was tweeting furiously the hashtags #FundtheDSPWageAct (https://twitter.com/hashtag/FundtheDSPWageAct?src=hashtag_click) and #DDeligibilityDC (https://twitter.com/hashtag/DDeligibilityDC?src=hashtag_click), and I appreciate those of you who retweeted or liked my @DDinWDC tweets (https://twitter.com/DDinWDC).  Let’s keep the groundswell going!

*Thanks to Ian Paregol from the DC Coalition, who was apparently at a neighboring table, and also thanks to others who've let me know they were redirected to overflow!