Microsoft Contributions Help Launch Online Resource for Los Angeles Residents
With Disabilities 

LOS ANGELES, March 19, 2001 -- When Alan Toy's family seeks new hiking trails
in the hills around Santa Monica, Calif., the thrill of the unknown can
quickly turn unpleasant. Toy uses a wheelchair. Starting down a clear-looking
path that turns muddy or strewn with rocks after a hundred yards quickly
sours what should have been a fun outing.  

"Either we all turn back," Toy says, "or I end up sitting by a stream while
they carry on and then come back to tell me what a great hike they had."
Frustrations like this made Toy, who holds a master's degree in urban
planning, wonder how he and others with mobility challenges could more easily
identify accessible destinations and travel routes in Los Angeles County.  

With support from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA),
Microsoft Corp., and other organizations that serve the more than 2 million
people with disabilities in Los Angeles County, Toy began turning that dream
into action. Result: A new Web site --running on the Microsoft SQL Server
database platform -- provides an easily searchable storehouse of maps,
directions, and grass-roots information to help people level accessibility
barriers in their neighborhoods and build a stronger sense of unity.  

"When you think about what brings a community together, it's things like
shared knowledge and common interests," says Toy, director of the non-profit
Living Independently in Los Angeles (LILA) Web site project development team
at the Advanced Policy Institute of the UCLA School of Public Policy and
Social Research. "You can share resources fairly easily when you're in the
same neighborhood, but the opportunities are a lot more limited when your
mobility is impaired and you're not part of the majority in any one area. So
I wanted to create a disability community on the Web."  

Microsoft provided $77,000 in cash and more than $60,000 worth of software
for the LILA project. Organizers launched the interactive Web site
(http://lila.ucla.edu/) at the Westside Center for Independent Living in Los
Angeles. Speakers at the event included Chris Jones, senior program manager
of community affairs at Microsoft; Barbara J. Nelson, dean of the UCLA School
of Public Policy and Social Research; Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev
Yaroslavsky and Los Angeles City Council Member Ruth Galanter. Toy also
demonstrated the site's features during the California State University,
Northridge, Center on Disabilities 16th annual international conference at
the Los Angeles Airport Marriott Hotel.  

Virtual Tour Guide to Accessible Assets 

LILA combines Geographic Information Systems (GIS)-based maps of Los Angeles
County with written descriptions of local disability-oriented resources,
ranging from non-profit service organization to accessible hiking trails,
fishing piers, and other recreational destinations. Through partnerships with
the City of Los Angeles and Los Angeles County, users will soon be able to
find such information as the layout of wheelchair-accessible entrances,
reserved parking spaces at government buildings, and the locations of public
telephones equipped with telecommunications devices for the deaf. Also, users
of the LILA "map room" will soon be able to enter into the search engine an
address or other identifying information, such as a ZIP code or the cross
streets of an intersection, and summon a map depicting assets that are likely
to be of interest.  

"You can take a virtual trip to where you're planning to go and hopefully
avoid potential obstacles," says John Whitbread, the LILA program manager
responsible for publicizing the Web site and recruiting people to add new
information to it. "When you go to a shopping mall for the first time, you
don't know where the elevators are. But people who have gone before you can
save you the time and trouble of learning those things if they post their
experiences on LILA."  

In addition to information about physical assets, LILA provides links to
public and private agencies, educational programs, housing, recreational
opportunities, support groups, and many other sources. The Web site includes
a newsroom, a community-events bulletin board, and a public forum where
visitors can join ongoing discussions or start a new topic related to living
with a disability in Los Angeles. Soon, LILA organizers will launch an
advocacy section that focuses on issues affecting the disability community --
such as recent legislation proposing stiffer penalties for misuse of disabled
parking permits -- and tells how people can get involved.  

Users Will Enrich LILA With Their Experiences 

To build and sustain that store of knowledge, LILA encourages users to post
comments about existing entries as well as submit examples of resources
they've uncovered through living and traveling in Los Angeles. Site
organizers are recruiting volunteer information sleuths to create entries
and, in return, receive products donated by Microsoft -- ranging from
software programs to cordless keyboards and mice.  

"I've learned about resources that are within a few blocks of where I live
and work that I never knew existed," says Whitbread, a wheelchair user for 20
years. "The great thing about LILA is that it's owned by the disability
community. If people see something that's missing from the site, they have
the power to make it better."  

Supporting LILA was an easy decision for Microsoft, says Bruce Brooks,
director of community affairs for the company.  

"This project fits very well with our overall mission and our vision of what
technology can do: empower people to create and discover opportunities,"
Brooks says. "LILA is using software and the Internet to help people view
their resources in a new way and participate more fully in their community."  

Another primary partner in LILA is the non-profit Westside Center for
Independent Living, which provides a variety of services for more than 30,000
people with disabilities annually. It will work with the other five
independent living centers in Los Angeles County to promote LILA too.  

"Every single day, we see the problems that people encounter in gaining
access to community services," says Mary Ann Jones, executive director of the
Westside Center. "What our clients will bring to this Web site is the
grass-roots element: They can show other people where the best wheelchair
repair shop is in a particular neighborhood or where to go if they need help
finding a place to live."  

Jake Sloan, a Westside Center client who recently previewed the offerings on
LILA, calls it "the most important development for the independent-living
community in Los Angeles, if not the entire country, in many years.  

"From my own experiences with trying to work through government bureaucracies
and hearing about a resource but not knowing where to find it, I can't stress
enough how valuable this Web site will be," Sloan says. "It provides a
central repository of vital information, a place for people with disabilities
to share their own expertise and the ability for users to find these
resources on their own. That is such a huge blessing."  

Creating a Neighborhood Feeling Online 

Toy, who studied at UCLA in the mid-1990s and returned to complete his
master's degree in 1999, hatched the LILA concept two years ago after hearing
one of his professors describe a similar project. The Interactive Asset
Mapping Los Angeles (I AM LA) project, led by API Associate Director Neal
Richman, had separately received $75,000 from Microsoft among other sources
to get students in South Central Los Angeles involved in cataloging their
community's resources.  

"I started wondering how we could go about mapping the assets the disability
community, which isn't in one particular neighborhood but is part of every
neighborhood," Toy says. "Neal said, Here's a desk and a phone and a computer
-- see if you can come up with something."  

While visiting UCLA last spring for an update on I AM LA, Microsoft
representatives heard about Toy's project and offered to help. Microsoft, the
second-largest contributor to LILA after UCLA, gave an initial grant of
$30,000 and a large donation of software last June to fuel LILA's development
and enable the team to revamp the computer network at the Westside Center for
Independent Living. In February, LILA received another $47,000 contribution
and more products from Microsoft to help sustain the Web site at least
through its first year of operation.  

Microsoft's support helped LILA organizers install digital subscriber line
connections to the Internet; upgrade the Westside Center's computers to the
Microsoft Windows 98 or Windows 2000 Professional operating systems, and
provide the center's staff with Microsoft Office 2000 Premium and Project
2000 application software. "Our employees are able to schedule meetings and
other day-to-day tasks much more efficiently using the Microsoft Outlook
application, which gives us more time to focus on the people we serve," Jones
says. Her staff and the other LILA developers also are using Microsoft
Project to manage the administrative side of running the Web site.  

Toy says his limited knowledge of technology actually has proved an asset in
developing LILA. "I'm not only aware of the kinds of content that people with
disabilities have trouble finding online, but I'm also sensitive to the
difficulties they might have in using a site like this," he explains. Some
ways that the team is trying to make LILA more accessible include menu bars
that allow people to enlarge the text size and screen width. Toy also hopes
to make downloadable text-reading tools available on the site and provide
non-visual alternatives to the maps and other resources on LILA.  

He and the LILA team are working with Los Angeles County, the City of Los
Angeles, and other agencies to add government resources to the Web site. For
example, Toy wants to post on-line versions of registration and application
forms for a wide array of disability services -- parking permits,
public-transit passes, in-home care -- sparing citizens with disabilities
travel to often-distant offices.  

LILA organizers and supporters hope to see the concept of this Web site
adapted elsewhere in California and nationwide. "We still need to iron out
some of the bugs," Toy says, "but I certainly hope LILA can serve as a model
program."  

Ellen Mosner, a product manager in the Accessible Technologies Group at
Microsoft, agrees that LILA provides an excellent example for other
communities to follow.  

"This site is not only creating better access to technology for people with
disabilities," says Mosner, "but it's also using technology to make the L.A.
community more accessible."

