Monday, 4-24-06

II Cor. 12:9

But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for
you, for my power is made perfect in your weakness." Therefore I will boast all the
more gladly about my weaknesses,
so that God's power may rest upon me.

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As I have stated before, my wife and I both have physical disabilities which limits our employability. My wife, Alice, was involved in a car accident in 1979 which left her with severe mobility difficulties and I was fell 120 feet into an abandoned mineshaft and the fall also left me with mobility problems, not quite as bad as Alice's disabilities, but nonetheless noticeable. I was surfing on the NET last Saturday and I found a Business Weekly Online article that I feel is very relevant to what I am doing. The full article is:

Commentary: Time to Enlist the Disabled in the Entrepreneurial Revolution

Finally, a new federal program that really goes beyond the old vocational-rehab model.

This should be a great, new era of economic opportunity for Americans with disabilities. Technology has made it far easier for them to work at home and participate in one of the most powerful economic trends of the last few years — the entrepreneurial boom.

Yet there are still large numbers of unemployed but capable disabled people in this country. Given the drain on the economy that represents, why isn't more being done to harness their abilities and channel them into this avenue to prosperity?

It may surprise some to hear there are disabled entrepreneurs. Remember Thomas Edison? He was deaf for much of his life. Want contemporary examples? Look at Charles Schwab and Ted Turner. Both have learning disabilities.

The Labor Dept. estimates that there are between 10 million and 11 million unemployed disabled adults of working age in the U.S. Taxpayers and private philanthropy spend several hundred billion dollars annually to support them. Yet few government programs that serve the disabled promote self-employment.

ILL-EQUIPPED AGENCIES. There's no lack of interest. Entrepreneurship has long appealed to people with disabilities. Practical considerations are strong motivators — independence, a flexible schedule, and the ability to work from a place that's equipped for their needs. The 1990 Census — taken when this entrepreneurial boom was in its infancy — found that a relatively high percentage of people with disabilities were self-employed — 12.2%, vs. 7.8% of those without disabilities.

Still, some statistics from the federal Rehabilitation Services Administration, which served over 223,000 clients are revealing. The agency, whose programs help integrate disabled people into the workplace and community, deemed 20% to 30% of its clients rehabilitated that year, but only 2.7% became self-employed or started a small business. The results aren't surprising. I can say from experience that public rehabilitation agencies are ill-equipped to help an ambitious client launch a company.

Make no mistake — starting a business is a major undertaking for anyone, and disabled people face additional difficulties — loss of public benefits such as health insurance or housing before the business can support them; lack of capital; and prejudice, their greatest enemy. As a long-time entrepreneur, I know the obstacles that arise if you are considered disabled. About 16 years ago, I went to half a dozen banks before one gave me a $10,000 credit line, though I had contracts for four times that amount. And I had to give the bank additional financial guarantees for the credit line. One lender told me, "We don't give loans to people of your nature." I knew he was referring to my stuttering.
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I know we all face this kind of scrutiny, but having any type of disability makes the process even harsher. We have to compete with able bodied people and even if we may be more advanced in our thinking, logic or further along in a project than an able bodied person...the cards are still stacked against us. So we just gotta try harder; no problem especially if you have the Lord Jesus Christ on your side.