• Insufficient accessibility
• Insufficient transportation options
• Discrimination

So let’s say, for the purpose of argument, that the barriers to employment you identified have somehow been eliminated. Individuals with disabilities would be on a completely equal playing field and should have no difficulty gaining and maintaining employment—assuming they had already obtained the skills necessary to access the now-accessible information and/or facilities and utilize those transportation options. Not a problem for an individual who acquired his/her disability as a child and received the appropriate services and supports as part of his/her education.

But what about those folks who, as adults, go from, say, totally sighted to totally blind? Those individuals need to learn how to do everything non-visually—and many of these new, non-visual skills must be acquired before employment can be sought.

We’re still living in our hypothetical, perfect world where access abounds, discrimination is non-existent, and VR—having been deemed unnecessary—no longer exists. So the newly-blinded individual goes to the generic employment service and is assigned to a job placement specialist who, of course, won’t discriminate, but who also doesn’t know much about blindness issues. This specialist would presumably refer that person to an appropriate agency for all of the training he/she needs in the areas of independent living and job readiness. Unfortunately, even in our new and perfect world, that training is expensive.

So I’m going to throw out a revision of the question I asked in my original post: If you are that job placement specialist, and you have a finite amount of money you can spend to place folks in jobs, and your job performance is judged on number of placements, whom are you going to spend that money on: 10 people who don’t need expensive training or 1 person who does? That’s not discrimination; that’s being practical. Throw our imperfect world back into the mix—the one in which access issues, lack of transportation, and discrimination persist—and people with disabilities are even more likely to get the short end of the stick.

If VR is eliminated, the money that is currently allocated for training and supports for individuals with disabilities will almost certainly be merged into general employment programs with no requirement that it be used for disability-related services. If nothing else we need to ensure that those funds continue to be spent on disability-related services so that the general job placement specialist will not be put in the position of having to choose between the 10 non-disabled clients and the 1 disabled one.

Now let’s say—again, hypothetically—that the money thing is all taken care of. If you had recently become disabled and were ready to get training and find employment, where would you rather go? To a general employment specialist who means well, but doesn’t really understand your needs, or to someone who spends all day every day helping individuals with disabilities find work? I don’t know about you, but my money is not on the general guy—especially in our imperfect world where there are access issues, lack of transportation, and discrimination. But if your money is on the general guy, you can take your Ticket to Work there instead of VR. VR is a choice.

You said:

Might some blind people just be using programs like Social Security and VR as a crutch to avoid taking their own initiative.

I’m sure some blind people are. Eliminating VR is not going to change that. Those people would just be using the general employment programs as a crutch instead.

VR is by no means perfect, but it brings two things to the table that will be eliminated if the administration gets its way:

1. Funds dedicated to helping individuals with disabilities gain and maintain employment and live independently
2. Counselors experienced in the issues and needs that directly result from the disability

I think these two things are essential for people with a recent disability, and pretty darn helpful for all job seekers with disabilities. VR needs to remain a choice.

I’m actually having a little trouble getting overly excited about the dismantling of VR. We continue to suffer a 75 percent unemployment rate despite VR’s existence for well over 50 years! Maybe, just maybe, it is time for a little shake up? This is just a thought. I am still reserving judgment, but, on this issue, I will say that I have not yet seen fit to call or write my legislators asking them to save VR.

I’m more concerned about increasing accessibility, improving transportation and ending discrimination against the blind. If those things can be accomplished, then there should be no need for VR. Might some blind people just be using programs like Social Security and VR as a crutch to avoid taking their own initiative.