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Arkansas deaf advocates ask legislature for funding to establish statewide Deaf Services Center
Summary
An Arkansas Association of the Deaf representative urged the Senate Children and Youth Committee to fund a Deaf Services Center to improve communication access across state services, requesting a $1.5 million one-time allocation and $350,000–$500,000 annually; advocates cited cases they say show ADA Title II failures and asked the governor for support.
Jeff Prael, representing the Arkansas Association of the Deaf, told the Senate Children and Youth Committee that people who are deaf in Arkansas face gaps in access to mental-health care and other state services and proposed creating a statewide Deaf Services Center led by deaf staff.
Prael recounted a case of a deaf man with severe mental illness who “remains homeless” because shelters and mental-health facilities lacked interpreter services or staff fluent in sign language, and said the state “failed him” and that he “became a statistic.” He also described a separate case in which a deaf mother of two repeatedly requested interpreters from the Department of Children and Family Services and, Prael said, was labeled “an unfit mother”…
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