Jennifer Walsh arrived in her wheelchair at the first-ever Accessible Community Teams (ACT) meeting, ready to present. She had spent years advocating for better sidewalk accessibility through Community Living Campaign’s (CLC) Sidewalk Search Party, training residents to report infrastructure issues, and helping make San Francisco a safer place for all. She was going to share her knowledge with the ACT. But as she approached the venue – an old church – she faced an all-too-familiar problem: she couldn’t get inside.
A new gate blocked the wheelchair ramp, and the people in charge of the facility were out of town. “I left when the associate pastor said, ‘I can’t do anything. The boss is out of town; we might have a ramp next week,’” Jennifer recalled. Quick thinking, Jennifer decided to do her presentation outside via Zoom.
The irony of the situation was not lost on anyone. ACT was formed to tackle accessibility barriers in neighborhoods, yet one of its key advocates was being forced to deliver her presentation from the cold sidewalk. “It was amazing,” said Patti Spaniak, Director of Community Engagement for CLC, which backs ACT. “So it was irony and a paradox.” This incident underscores exactly why ACT exists.
The Birth of ACT
ACT is the brainchild of Juliet Rothman, who has long been involved in accessibility advocacy through the Sidewalk Search Party. Sidewalk Search Party is a community-driven initiative that has been meeting since 2019 to strategize ways to educate city departments and private construction sites on maintaining accessible temporary pathways during construction. The group frequently explores neighborhoods in the city and tags broken sidewalks as “quaked” by putting a duck-shaped information packet next to the sidewalk for neighbors and city workers to see.
ACT was born out of Juliet’s realization that accessibility issues—uneven sidewalks, blocked ramps, poorly lit streets, and narrow pathways—exist everywhere, making everyday life difficult for seniors, people with disabilities, parents pushing strollers, and others. ACT will work to change this by empowering local communities to identify and report these issues, creating a grassroots movement for accessibility improvements.
What ACT does
ACT will operate hyperlocally, empowering individual neighborhoods to take action rather than tackling citywide accessibility issues simultaneously. Community volunteers will form teams, receive training on identifying common barriers—such as sidewalk hazards, inadequate lighting, and inaccessible entryways—and learn how to report them effectively.
“We will hopefully make these communities more comfortable for everyone—seniors, people with disabilities, even moms pushing baby carriages and racing across streets with toddlers,” Juliet said. “The idea is to make groups of people in each community spread the word, be aware, and take steps to address the issues they find.”
To support ACT efforts, teams will use The Accessibility Teams Handbook, which highlights that accessibility is rarely a simple “yes” or “no” issue, as it often depends on specific circumstances and environmental factors. The handbook provides guidance on reporting barriers, understanding legal accessibility requirements, and working with city agencies to advocate for improvements. By leveraging this resource, ACT members can make meaningful contributions to their communities while gaining a deeper understanding of accessibility challenges and solutions.
The Department of Public Works has already expressed enthusiasm for the initiative, recognizing that community reports save the city time and effort in identifying problem areas. “If you guys go out there and find all this stuff and let us know, that saves us the effort of going and looking,” a Public Works representative relayed to Juliet.
Patti is working to better align ACT with CLC community groups. She has helped secure buy-in from local leaders and structured a system to integrate ACT into community meetings and advocacy efforts. So far, Patti has signed up three of the neighborhoods CLC works with.
The Road Ahead
Looking ahead, ACT aims to expand beyond its initial three pilot neighborhoods. “My main goals for this year would be to train all the communities that CLC serves,” Juliet said. “And I would like to have the booklet printed.”
As ACT gains traction, organizers hope to compile success stories, demonstrating the impact of local advocacy on citywide accessibility improvements. Jennifer’s experience at that first meeting was a stark reminder of why this work matters. If an accessibility expert can’t enter a building to present at a meeting about accessibility, what does that say about the daily experiences of people with disabilities? ACT is determined to change that—one community at a time.