Running for office with a disability

One of the main hurdles I face as Deaf/HOH person is making sure that I get an interpreter for all meetings. It is the responsibility of the person doing interviews to pay and provide an interpreter; to ensure I have equal access. Many times people don’t want to have to pay and go through the hassle of securing an interpreter. I can’t tell you how many hours I've spent fighting with doctors' offices or other offices to make sure they provide an ASL interpreter. City council meetings don’t have Close Captioning in English to help follow the meetings on Zoom. In person meetings are not accessible to me at all due to not having an interpreter. The second issue I face is knocking on doors and being able to effectively communicate with people. Being able to hear soft spoken people is extremely hard for me. Talking on the phone is another issue and making sure that I understand what people are saying makes for very frustrating conversation for not only me but the person I’m talking to. Big gatherings are overwhelming and tiring for me. People ask, why not just wear hearing aids? Because I spend more time fixing, cleaning and trying to adjust my hearing aids to fit different situations. I miss most of what is happening around me. Really good hearing aids are $4,0000 plus and most insurance companies don’t cover them. Most people expect me as a hard of hearing person to adapt to hearing people. Hearing people struggle to adapt to having to deal with someone who is hard of hearing. If you want deaf people to have a place at the table you have to create access for them. All, meetings on Zoom should have Closed Captioning and so should all videos made by the city. Provide interpreters when interviewing a Deaf person for a board or office position. Fight to make hearing aids more affordable or to be covered by insurance. Those are all ways to support making sure more deaf people run for office.

Tracy Crespin