Like many disabled Americans, I found working online to be a great source of economic empowerment. Thanks to the parents of my friends providing me with a laptop, this was a reality. While I was not always able to work, in the past two years, I have been able to work at least twenty hours a week thanks to the proper medication. However, I soon found that government agencies that were supposed to be helpful to someone in my situation were far from effective.
For example, in order to work online, I needed a disability accessible laptop. Worse, many of the online jobs provided by government agencies, such as NTI (NTICentral.org), required I have a regular home to live in and the money to pay for internet access. These types of requirements are ridiculous for someone struggling with being homeless due to disability. Obviously, no one with a history of disability works at NTI.
In other words, I wonder why little attention has been placed on helping homebound and shut in disabled workers. After all, there are plenty of agencies that allow people to work from home in jobs such as receptionist, secretary, bookkeeping, writing, and mail services. If the government wanted to be serious about saving money, why would they not consider making more government jobs home based and available specifically for disabled workers?
In the meantime, getting help from agencies such as Social Security Disability means that you should not work at all. This is completely impractical for someone that can work at least 10 to 20 hours per week. For example, I have no family support and needed medications to prevent becoming more disabled.
It makes more sense to place people on Medicaid and one year of benefits. Then, once the disabled person has a stable home, the government can try to assess what kinds of jobs they could do. Furthermore, helping them to maintain those jobs should be a priority.
Despite the fact that many people in America have severe migraine disorders, autoimmune disorders, and brain injuries, they often do not get Social Security Disability. Worse, it is extremely difficult for them to get and keep jobs. Most people assume that Vocational Rehabilitation is there for people in this situation.
Frankly, after dealing with Vocational Rehabilitation in two different states, I realize that this was simply for people that needed help with getting disability access to their current job. They do not actually help you to find a job that is specified for your needs or abilities. They only want to help once you have secured the job and need something like a ramp to use your wheelchair. Their focus is on the physically disabled and not people with invisible to the eye disabilities.
Computers will continue to dominate the American workforce. What needs to happen it is a recognition of the freelance and small business owners model. In many ways, almost every disabled person could have a type of employment that integrates them into economic empowerment. What is not happening is recognition of the power of technology to ameliorate this situation.
It is not good enough for the Social Security Disability Office, the government, or Vocational Rehab to tell you to find your own job. The government needs to be proactive in creating these jobs and making sure that disabled people can keep them. Over time, I feel that this will be a great way to heal many budgetary woes in addition to giving many of the disabled the independence that they need.