Wednesday was a difficult day for The American Independent News Network, which is the larger entity that operates The Iowa Independent. Our chief executive and founder announced two of our sister sites would close and their content would be moved to The American Independent.
A recently introduced bill could have far-reaching impact on the U.S. sugar industry, including American Crystal Sugar, a farmer-owned cooperative that locked out 1,300 Midwest workers on Aug. 1.
The chairman for Herman Cain’s Iowa effort says the campaign “relied more on the word of farmers than Washington regulators” in deciding to run an ad containing claims the Environmental Protection Agency says are false.
The Iowa Senate will remain under the control of a slim 26-25 Democratic majority when it reconvenes in January 2012.
Newer Des Moines area rental properties pose few accessibility problems for people with disabilities, according to a study released by the Iowa Civil Rights Commission.
Officials last fall studied seven randomly chosen apartment buildings, which serve low- to -high-income residents in Des Moines, Johnston, Urbandale, Clive and West Des Moines. An anonymous tester looked for problems in the rental units’ design and construction. Landlords and real estate agents weren’t notified in advance of the site visits.
The study was designed to increase awareness about the barriers those with disabilities can face in housing. Most rental units studied were accessible to people with disabilities, but some “shortcomings” were noted:
* Some dumpsters were inaccessible to a person in a wheelchair.
* Air-conditioning units were inaccessible to a person in a wheelchair in three of the seven buildings.
“It actually gives us a baseline for what is going on with discrimination,” said the commission’s executive director, Ralph Rosenberg, during a commission meeting last week. Results of the study were released last month.
Rosenberg added, “The biggest bang for our buck in civil rights is to prevent new buildings from being constructed that violate civil rights law.”
According to the commission, fair housing laws spell out how dwellings must be built to accommodate those with disabilities. Omitting any of the following could give rise to a discrimination complaint:
* Failing to provide at least one accessible building entrance.
* Providing common and public areas that are unusable by, or inaccessible to, disabled persons.
* Installing doors with less than a 32-inch clear opening.
* Failing to provide accessible routes into and through dwelling units.
* Placing environmental controls (light switches, electrical outlets, thermostats, etc.) lower than 15 inches from the floor or higher than 48 inches from the floor.
* Failing to reinforce bathroom walls for future grab bar installations. This is the only item not tested by the commission.
* Designing and constructing kitchens and bathrooms that are unusable to disabled persons.
The commission received 1,915 discrimination complaints last year. Race and disability were most often cited as reasons for housing discrimination complaints, according to the commission`s 2007 annual report. Disability was named in 45 of 121 housing complaints, the report found.
Rosenberg said in an interview Monday that the commission will work on other testing studies. The next study includes assessing newspaper housing ads that may discriminate against people with children, he said.
“We think sometimes that the media is putting in ads that violate the law,” he said.
This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Fair Housing Act and the 20th anniversary of adding people with disabilities to the list of those protected against housing discrimination. For more information, visit the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development.
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