Issues affecting Lee's disabled under review

Lee County will be getting some extra scrutiny this week as community members and area leaders get together and examine safety, education, employment, health care, housing and the environment. The effort will help increase the quality of services for people with disabilities, but locally, officials are saying everyone will benefit.

Officials are using a model called Learning Exploring Networking and Strategizing that was developed by Maryland-based Council on Quality and Leadership. Lee County will be the third area of Florida to undergo the exercise. Jacksonville and Orlando already had theirs, while Miami is scheduled for later this month.

"In Orlando, one of their biggest issues was transportation. It's the same type of issues that we have here," said Todd Ryan, Area 8 quality leader for the Agency for Persons with Disabilities.

In Southwest Florida, some 30 experts from various fields will be meeting, assessing the community and strategizing on how to make it better.

"It's a way for the community to look at itself and find ways to make it better and not just for people with disabilities but for the entire community," said Mr. Ryan. "We will be riding buses. We will be looking at health care systems, how far do you have to go and how long of a wait do you have to see someone."

He said people at bus stops and in waiting rooms will be questioned throughout the community.

Going into the activity, officials said they were already able to guess at some problem areas.

"We know the current housing market and transport are current problems," said Mary Provencher, president of Shalimare and Panache Listings. "We went to the bus people and asked for maps. They told us the cost of printing them is too much. They said, 'We don't have them but you can go on the Internet.' When we asked if they could donate a few bus passes, they said they couldn't do that for us. There's a lot of issues with that."

Mr. Ryan said transportation is an issue, particularly for those who work on the weekends or in the evenings.

"If you have no transportation and have to take a bus to go to the doctor's ,that can be an all-day affair. You get there, see your doctor and it takes the rest of the day to get home on the bus. Then you have the other part, the community safety. Is it safe to be on the bus that long? There are a lot of issues, especially with some of the weather challenges we have down here."

Mr. Ryan said another issue is lack of bus stops within some areas. He said community safety experts would look into whether that was because the areas are unsafe.

"It's a big project. We're very fortunate that the council on quality leadership has put this together," he said.