The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires local (and state)governments to conduct a “Self-Evaluation” of programs and services. The Self-Evaluation is intended to look at how the City’s programs,services, activities and benefits operate, and whether people withdisabilities can use them as easily and fully as people withoutdisabilities.  The Self-Evaluation looks at how the City communicateswith members of the public with disabilities, and how the Cityaccommodates the needs of the public with disabilities so that we canhave an equal chance of using and benefiting from City programs.  (TheSelf-Evaluation is not an internal review of employment practices,which was a separate effort.)

In San Francisco, we took the ADA Self-Evaluation mandate veryseriously.  We held six public hearings to gather input on prioritiesand problems that people with disabilities encountered.  We thencreated a comprehensive survey instrument  (we believe it is the most thorough instrument out there) andsurveyed all of the 480 identified programs within the City.  Citystaff’s commitment to full access for people with disabilities isillustrated by the fact that we got an 84% response rate from thesurveys.

We encourage you to read the ADA Self-Evaluation Report– which we also tried to make as accessible as possible.  It is aneasy-to-read document, which outlines both the results of the survey,and the work that needs to be done.

We believe we are making progress each year in creating anaccessible, welcoming, and accommodating City.  However, we also knowthat we still have work to do.  If you have had a problem using orparticipating in a City program because of your disability, and Citystaff has not been responsive to your requests for assistance, we needto know about it.  Please contact our office at 554-6789 (ph), or554-6799 (TTY), or file a complaint with us on-line.  We will follow up and try to resolve the issue promptly.