Riders Welcome ‘Drive-Through’ Wheelchair Wash

Lena Reno knew the time had come to give her electric scooter a good scrub-down when she saw that someone had scrawled “wash me” into the dust.

But months passed before the West Covina woman, who has multiple sclerosis, could do anything about it.

“My range of ability is very limited,” said Reno, 57, who lives alone. “I can’t stretch -- I have to hold on to something. With MS, my balance is bad.”

On Sunday, Reno was among dozens of disabled people from Los Angeles County who rolled into a Boyle Heights parking lot to waiting volunteers bearing yellow sponges and buckets of soapy suds. Some volunteers tooth-brushed wheelchair nooks and crevices in ways that would have made car detailers proud.

“It’s just like a drive-through car wash,” said Reno, leaning back in her seat as five volunteers wiped her handlebars and wheel rims, as well as the back of the scooter where the “wash me” demand -- written by a neighbor child, she believes -- had been.

“Oh, it’s nice and shiny now.... It’s blue! It’s not gray anymore,” she said.

Across the U.S., an estimated 6.8 million people use devices to assist them with mobility, according to the Disability Statistics Center at UC San Francisco. That includes about 1.7 million wheelchair or scooter riders.

Sunday’s Wheelchair Wash event in a parking lot at White Memorial Medical Center was intended not just as a chance to clean up, but also as an opportunity to draw disabled people out of their homes, said organizers from Familia Unida Living with Multiple Sclerosis, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit.

“Today, the celebration is the diversity of culture, the diversity of abilities,” said Irma Resendez, executive director of Familia Unida, which offers support groups and counseling.

The activities, staffed by about 100 volunteers working underneath colorful, balloon-festooned canopies, commemorated the anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act becoming law in July 1992.

Attendees noted that the years since the sweeping federal law took effect have seen many changes, including prohibitions against discrimination by employers and requirements that public facilities be wheelchair-accessible.

Richard Acosta, a 45-year-old wheelchair basketball player who had polio as a child, noted the significance of cutting street curbs to allow easy passage.

“We can leave our homes and not be on the streets,” said Acosta, who loves his sporty wheelchair. It’s a low-backed vehicle that permits greater upper body movement and has splayed “camber” wheels for rapid turning. “We can be on sidewalks now.”

“We’re just as normal as everybody else, except we don’t use our legs to walk with,” he said. There were other opportunities for pampering -- tents for free manicures and haircuts, food and music.

Vicki Elman, a former secretary at UCLA, hadn’t had a haircut in more than a year. The last time the 54-year-old San Dimas woman went for a trim, she said the stylist refused to go near her, calling her “contagious.”

“MS -- it’s not contagious,” said Elman, who said she left rather than “getting into a fight.”

On Sunday, Elman tried to hold her head still as volunteer Sarah Soria -- a beauty school student -- trimmed her amber tresses into long layers.

“To be able to come here and get your hair done, get your wheelchair washed, and eat, and the camaraderie,” Elman said, “it makes you feel like you’re normal.”

Under the main tent, the corps of volunteers included employees from Union Bank and White Memorial Hospital and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa -- who toweled off wheelchairs.

Harley Rubenstein, a 47-year-old Long Beach resident, whose own chair was scrubbed by Villaraigosa, said he hadn’t yet been able to check out the quality of the mayor’s handiwork. “I’m sure it’s excellent,” he said.

Having a dirty wheelchair is not only unsightly but bad for self-esteem, participants said.

“A wheelchair to me, it’s like what you wear,” said Rubenstein, a member of the Los Angeles County Commission on Disabilities. “It’s part of you.... When it’s clean, you’re clean.”