Many bathrooms in Michigan meet the minimum requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act by having a stall at least 60 inches in diameter, or wide enough for a wheelchair to rotate 180 degrees.
However, these minimum ADA requirements are not suitable for many people who can not self-transfer from the wheelchair to the toilet. This includes the 14-year-old daughter of Iris Mehler.
“Think about your grandmother, someone who's elderly and no longer has the power in their extremities to kind of self-transfer from the wheelchair onto a toilet. Think about a child with cognitive impairments that doesn't even know how to use the toilet, but is too big to be changed on a baby changing table,” Mehler said, listing several other examples. “All of those people cannot use a standard ADA accessible bathroom because this is not accessible enough for them.”
Mehler is a Midland resident and host of “2 Moms, No Fluff”, a podcast about raising kids with disabilities. She is currently working to get a fully accessible bathroom in Midland which would go above and beyond the minimum ADA requirements, including a hoist and an adult-sized changing table.
“By virtue of having bathrooms that are not accessible for everyone, we actually exclude a variety of people with a variety of disabling conditions from activities and gatherings in the community that we all take for granted,” Mehler said.
Many communities worldwide have already adopted the model of “changing places restrooms”, including the UK, France, Australia, New Zealand and Germany. Mehler, who has lived in many different locations, said that the U.S. is behind.
“It's interesting to me that in the United States of all places, they didn't adopt the model and it's not coming from the U.S. government down to legislation for all of us. It's only sprouting out as a grassroots movement from people like myself,” she said. “Enough is enough.”
Within five years, Mehler said she hopes there will be at least ten adult-sized changing places in bathrooms across Midland County. Beyond bathrooms, she wants to see more communities developing wheelchair accessible playgrounds, having Disability Film Festivals and Disability Pride Parades, “so people can actually see the size of the disability community and support it.”
“We need to think and look at our community as a whole,” Mehler said. “It's important to understand that even if you (are not) personally affected with a disability, or you don't have a family member with a disability, that you can still be an ally and a voice to the disability community.”
