A Chance to Grow
Gregory Freeman just got a loan for a truck he won’t drive to haul tools he can’t lift for handyman jobs he’s unable to perform. The owner of Long Beach-based Son-Rise Cleaning Services will tell you that’s progress.
The entrepreneur with the quick smile and uncooperative legs is a recent graduate of the SEED Institute, an Irvine-based nonprofit that’s battling stratospheric unemployment rates among the disabled by teaching them to run their own businesses.
Armed with a business plan, a trusted relative as an employee and a $5,000 micro-loan from the BYL Bank Group of Yorba Linda, Freeman is determined to expand his tiny lawn care, painting and cleaning service into something that can support his three young children.
“Disabled people want to work, but a lot of us can’t handle a regular 9-to-5 job,” said Freeman, 47, who was paralyzed for a time with a congenital condition that causes his bones to fracture easily. “Running this business out of my house is perfect for me.”
SEED, which stands for Self-Employment of the Enterprising Disabled, is part of a small but growing movement that’s preaching entrepreneurship as the key to self-sufficiency for the injured and the handicapped nationwide.
*
Spurred by technology that makes it easier to work from home, as well as changes in federal law requiring rehabilitation agencies to let disabled workers explore self-employment, California is among a handful of states funding programs aimed at turning some of the nation’s most dependent citizens into business owners.
It’s a welcome departure from the dead-end jobs that disabled workers have been shunted into for decades. But even advocates say it won’t be easy. Would-be entrepreneurs face losing cash support and health benefits under a welfare system that penalizes them for working. A physical or mental impairment only adds to the already daunting challenge of building a successful enterprise.
“Not everyone with a disability is geared for self-employment,” says Art Guerrero, a SEED instructor and job developer with Goodwill Industries of Orange County. “We’re just trying to give people more options.”
While the rest of the nation is enjoying the lowest jobless rates in decades, more than 70% of the 30 million working-age Americans with disabilities remain unemployed, according to a recent poll by the National Organization on Disability.
Legislation such as the Americans With Disabilities Act has opened a few more doors for handicapped workers. But many simply cannot handle a standard 40-hour week in a traditional workplace setting.
“They may have transportation issues, medical needs, maybe they can only work two to three hours at a stretch before fatigue sets in and they have to rest,” said Julie Damon, co-founder of the SEED Institute. “A lot of employers just aren’t going to hire someone like that.”
Yet the business world is teeming with free spirits who couldn’t adapt to the conformity of corporate life. Many started their own companies instead.
Damon believes some handicapped people could do the same, given the proper entrepreneurial training and encouragement.
Founded in 1996, SEED provides would-be entrepreneurs with intensive training in business basics including marketing, budgeting and writing a business plan.
While the course work is similar to what’s available in entrepreneurial training classes offered elsewhere, SEED adapts the material to its clients’ unique needs. That could be Braille texts for the blind, sign-language translation for the hearing-impaired or repetition for those with learning problems.
Like many nonprofits, SEED has struggled for funding and operates out of borrowed office space in downtown Irvine. But the program recently got a boost in the form of a $57,000 grant from the state Department of Rehabilitation, which is exploring ways to help more disabled Californians create their own jobs.
State officials point to the newly reauthorized federal Rehabilitation Act, which requires state rehab agencies to take a harder look at self-employment for some disabled workers. The push also is linked to new telecommuting technology and the transformation of the American economy into one led by entrepreneurs and owners of small businesses.
“Self-employment is more complicated, so [rehab agencies] have had a tendency to avoid it,” said Margaret Lamb, deputy director of field operations for the California Department of Rehabilitation. “But the labor market is changing. . . . So we’re trying to streamline our process to make it more consistent with the economy today.”
Which isn’t to say that California is going to try to turn everyone with a disability into the next Bill Gates. Officials say workers with previous business experience or a skill that’s easily adaptable to self-employment will be the most likely candidates for entrepreneurial training. The state’s grant will allow 36 Californians to participate in the SEED program this year, out of a population of 80,000 served by the Department of Rehabilitation.
Other states are moving more aggressively. Pennsylvania provides entrepreneurial training and has arranged micro-loan funding of up to $10,000 for some disabled business owners, according to Randy Brown, a district administrator for the Pennsylvania Office of Vocational Rehabilitation. Over the last couple of years, one two-county area in the western part of the state has trained about 60 disabled entrepreneurs who have gone on to start 12 businesses.
*
Such programs remain the exception. Still, disabled advocates say they represent an ideological shift in a bureaucracy that historically has channeled handicapped workers into sheltered workshops, low-level government jobs and “diversity” positions with large corporations.
“The employment programs of the past just aren’t working,” said Urban Miyares, president of the San Diego-based Disabled Business Persons Assn. “That’s why this is becoming a hot issue. . . . We’re seeing an attitude shift.”
Miyares contends the biggest obstacle to business development among the disabled is a welfare system that punishes even modest success with a reduction in benefits.
For example, recipients of Social Security Disability Income can lose their cash payments and their health care if earnings top just $500 a month. Proposed legislation would raise those income ceilings, allowing disabled workers to gain some momentum before they lose their safety net.
Freeman isn’t concerned about all that right now. His cleaning business has only a handful of accounts and no full-time employees to speak of--except his brother Juan Bateman, who does most of the mowing and scrubbing in his off hours from his day job at an auto parts store.
But Freeman is following the steps laid down in his business plan. In addition to the truck, he has purchased a computer, lawn equipment and a yellow pages ad to get those calls coming in. He’s networking with the local Chamber of Commerce and talking with a youth group about providing jobs to keep young people on the straight and narrow.
The pressure is on to make a go of it--and that’s fine by him.
“Most disabled people don’t want to sit around waiting for the mailman to bring their check,” he said. “Taxpayers’ money would be better spent helping us help ourselves.”
