(201) 996-9100 Bergen / (201) 533-4407 Hudson
hipcilNews Winter / Spring 2024

hipcilNews Winter / Spring 2024

hipcil Newsletter Winter Spring 2024

INDEX

hipcil Holiday Party – New Location, Same Holiday Fun!

While it rained outside on the afternoon of Sunday, December 10th, the ballroom at The Elan in Lodi was warm, inviting, and festive for the hipcil holiday party. The room was beautifully decorated for the holidays and filled to the brim with over 130 hipcil consumers, staff, board members and friends.

The attendees danced, socialized, and enjoyed a delicious 4-course plated meal, complete with cake and holiday treats. Prizes from many generous donors were given to the lucky winners and the 50/50 take home was a whopping $248!

Longtime hipcil friend Christopher Gagliardi closed out the party by gracing everyone with his lovely voice, singing “Silent Night.” We hope everyone had a very happy holiday season and a wonderful start to 2024!

From the Desk of the President:e

In my job it is critical for me to remain up to date on current trends, legislative issues, member concerns and the opinions that are being voiced by our constituents. In my early years as a Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor my interviews focused on an individual’s knowledge, skills, and abilities to learn the most about their career ambitions, desired environment, and job goals. Together the consumer and I would develop a plan with employment as the goal based on all the collected information.

Lately I’ve been hearing the term “lived experience” which essentially gathers all the aspects of a person’s life and what they are currently presenting to the world. Decisions are made based on what has gone before and what is anticipated in the future. We are trying to build programs and develop activities based on the needs and preferences of the people we serve in the hipcil family. We want to provide meaningful experiences that will capitalize on the progress that we have made to be fully included in our community.

Let’s declare 2024 as our year to be full participants in our surroundings by attending a community event, interacting with our neighbors, and most importantly exercising our right to vote to live the Independent Living experience, “Nothing about us without us”.

Brian Fitzgibbons

Cooking Corner. Seriously, The Best Healthy Turkey Chili

Healthy turkey chili made with lean ground turkey, kidney beans and corn. This famous recipe is perfectly spiced, packed with plenty of protein and fiber, and is simply the BEST. Make it on the stovetop or in your slow cooker for an easy, delicious weeknight dinner.

Ingredients:
• 2 teaspoons olive oil,
• 1 yellow onion, chopped,
• 3 garlic cloves, minced,
• 1 medium red bell pepper, chopped,
• 1 pound extra lean ground turkey or chicken (99%),
• 4 tablespoons chili powder* (I used McCormick chili powder, which is very mild. Do not use spicy chili powder, and if using a different brand, start with 2 tablespoons),
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin,
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano,
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper,
• 1/2 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste,
• 1 (28-ounce) can diced tomatoes or crushed tomatoes,
• 1 1/4 cups chicken broth;
• 2 (15 oz) cans dark red kidney beans, rinsed and drained;
• 1 (15 oz) can sweet corn, rinsed and drained;
• For topping: cheese, avocado, tortilla chips, cilantro, sour cream;

Instructions:

Place oil in a large pot and place over medium high heat. Add in onion, garlic and red pepper and sauté for 5-7 minutes, stirring frequently.

Add in ground turkey and break up the meat; cooking until no longer pink. Next add in chili powder, cumin, oregano, cayenne pepper and salt; stir for about 20 seconds.

Next add in tomatoes, chicken broth, kidney beans and corn. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 30-45 minutes or until chili thickens and flavors come together. Taste and adjust seasonings and salt as necessary.

Garnish with anything you’d like. Makes 6 servings, about 1 1/2 cups each.

Nutrition:
Serving: 1.5cups ,
Calories: 336cal,
Carbohydrates: 46.7g ,
Protein: 31.8g,
Fat: 3.7g ,
Fiber: 17.4g,
Sugar: 9.5g.

(Recipe courtesy of https://www.ambitiouskitchen.com/seriously-the-best-healthy-turkey-chili/)

Thank you, Maria!

After 22 years of working at hipcil, Maria Valentin retired in January. She ran many programs at the Bergen office, including Leadership, Advocacy, Education and Determination (LEAD) years ago, the Modification Access Project (MAP), Special Needs Assistance Program (SNAP), and was always the 50/50 raffle go-to at hipcil events! All of us at hipcil thank you for your hard work and send best wishes for a future filled with lots of beach time!

Did You Know? …

• 6.1% of American children are being treated for ADHD with medication.
(healthline.com)

• An estimated 25.7 million adults are limited in their usual activities because of arthritis. That number is expected to grow to 35 million by 2040.
(cdc.gov, Center for Disease Control)

• As many as 28% of children born to a parent with fibromyalgia will eventually develop the disease, according to a Centers for Disease Control in 2009 study.
(Fibromyalgia-symptoms.org)

• Approximately 15% of American adults (37.5 million) aged 18 and over report some trouble hearing.
(nidcd.nih.gov)

• Children have a 50% chance of having dyslexia if one parent has it, and a 100% chance if both parents have it.
(Dosomething.org)

Update on the Women’s Group.

The Women’s Group is back! On the first Thursday of every month at the Bergen hipcil office, we host some wonderful ladies for activities that are new, fun and exciting every time! We play BINGO, paint pictures, unscramble puzzles, make crafts and more from 11am-1pm. To learn more or to sign up, please call 201-996-9100 ext. 29 for Blagica or ext. 24 for Meaghan. We look forward to having you join us!

Thank you to all who donated door prizes for our holiday party! Your donations were a huge highlight of the evening.

John’s Crazy Socks;
Stop & Shop;
Wawa;
Simon Styles;
Turning Point;
BEC;
Stickii;
Shoprite;
Cheesecake Factory;
Kendra Scott;
NY Jets;
Acme;
Eileen Fisher;
Young Living- Johanna Marto;
Marija Jankuloska;
Wyckoff Family YMCA;
Costco;
CreationByAmandaAnn;
Tonielle Luceen Michele Cardinalle

hipcil Thanks…

hipcil receives many contributions from individuals and the community throughout the year. We thank the following for their recent exceptional generosity:

Lottie Esteban and family;
Jerome Saunders in Memory of Beth Shapiro Steele;
Shapiro Family Foundation;
Karen McDowell;
Annie Been

We’ll Miss You, Trisha!

After working at hipcil for over 10 years, Trisha Ebel is moving on! She has been a valued member of both the Bergen and Hudson staff, working with Adjustment to Vision Loss consumers during peer support groups and events. We’ll miss you, Trisha! Best of luck in your future endeavors!

The Importance of our Annual Meeting.

hipcil is a non-profit organization holding a 501c3 designation and we follow specific guidelines to ensure compliance. One of our mandates is to hold an Annual Meeting 45 days after the close of the Federal Fiscal year. We have made that a tradition in our event schedule. This year we gathered our members, staff and Board of Trustee officers and met to discuss our achievements from the prior year and share our plans for the coming year. This year’s meeting was held at the Hackensack Recreation Center, where we enjoyed a light supper, ratified the Board members for the second half of their two-year term, reviewed our accomplishments and heard how our featured guest Kyle Kreske overcame significant barriers to earn his counseling degree.

Perhaps the best part of the evening was that it gave our members the chance to meet, renew old acquaintances and tell the hipcil leadership what type of programing they want to see us sponsor for the future.

As always, our consumers want to have more opportunities to meet for social events, field trips and seminars. We agree, so we are planning our 2024 to include:

• Monthly meetings of the Adjustment to Vision Loss groups in Secaucus and North Arlington
• Renewed hipcil Humpday Happenings – monthly Zoom meetings
• The Caregivers Group
• The Women’s Group
• Summer Picnic
• Fall Fun Festival
• A festive Gala in the Fall

Feel to add to this list by writing to us at hipcilnj@gmail.com

Opportunity to Share Your Experience

hipcil is pleased to be collaborating with researchers at the University of New Hampshire (UNH) to understand the impact of Long COVID on employment for people with disabilities.  In the spring of 2024, the researchers at UNH will hold two virtual focus groups to allow them to speak to workers or former adult workers with disabilities who have Long COVID to understand their employment-related experiences.  The focus groups will run for one hour and will include 5-8 adults with disabilities and Long COVID from around the country. The results will help federal, state, and other partners better support employment outcomes for people with disabilities who have Long COVID. Stay tuned for more information about this opportunity to share your story this spring!

We Welcome the Following New and Renewing Members of hipcil for 2024!

You can become a member of hipcil for 2024! For a membership form visit our website at www.hipcil.org/membership or call one of our offices!

Jeanne Aimone
Roselyn Altman*
Kevin Angelini
Elaine Appellof*
Carl & Janice Arnold
Paul Aronsohn*
Deborah Baumann-DaSilva
Annie Been
Joanna Benthall
Darrell & Tamiko Bethea*
Jerry Bojko
Mario Brusco
George & Mildred Bullerdick
Brenda & Jerry Calabrese
Daniel Calabrese
Tonielle Cardinalle
Mary G. Carney
Tom & Susan Carney
Trish Carney*
Kay Chase*
Elizabeth Cohen-Hittner
Rezena Colclough
Barbara B. Comerford, Esq. *+
Michael & Marie Cook*
Sonia Cordova-Chumpitaz
Jim & Jean Csaposs*
Mary Culver
Howard Craig Cutler
Carol Dass*
Martha DeYoung
James F. Dougherty
Barbara Dublin*
Dennis Dusevic
Patricia & Dave Ebel*
Austin Epstein
Lottie Esteban*
Oria Estrada
Stella Fellinger
William Fellinger*
Betty Fetzer*
Brian Fitzgibbons*
Virginia Flynn & Warren Williams
Gerardine Galvin
Laurie C. Galvin
Marily Gonzalez*
Patricia Guy
Harries Family
Elizabeth Bojane Heap
Dana Hemmings
Rick Hodgman*
Michelle Jones
Geraldine Kearns
Timothy Kerr
Joan F. Klug*
John Koch*
Lorena & Ana Kos
Diane LaForge*
Jeanne Laraia
Virginia L. Laughlin
Louise Lee
Susan & Kin Lee
Jay Levene
Marion Levine
Chili Li*
Gloria Lieberstein*
Roy Lippin*
Margaret Lusch
Joyce & Leonard Malech*
Diukesma/Dinky Padron-Marrero
Joan Martorella
Dora Meler
Ann Melone*
Abby G. Mesce
Dr. Frances Meyer*
Latoya Miller
John Mulholland
Sonia Noel
Gloria Ortiz
Margaret Papageorgiou
Chris Paraskevacos
Naaisha Pettiford
Richard Pietrzak
Marianne Pigoncelli*
Anne Marie Prendergast
Cecelia Ragland
Carmen N. Reyes
Cruz Rodriguez
Beverly & Richard Ryan*
Stephanie Seid
Doug Simon, CEO Mobility Elevator*+
Chandravati Singh
Maria E. Smith
Michael Smith*
Dana Solomon
Jeffrey St. Germain & Family*
John Stanik*
Mary S. Thornton
Janet Tolliver & Joseph Molee
Alberto & Ivis Trejo
Danny Vaca
Carol Viceconte*
Ron Vida
Anne Burton Walsh*
Philip & Linda Webster-Cennerazzo*
Joan & Richard Wechsler
Janice Willet*
Sharon Womack
Anthony Yorio*
Maureen Zurlo

CORPORATE +
LIFE MEMBER*
DECEASED**

bergenPAC Arts Access Program

hipcil is thrilled to continue being a part of the bergenPAC Arts Access Program! This program makes tickets for specific shows at the bergenPAC in Englewood available to our members free of charge. For more information on the Arts Access Program, call or email Jayne at 201-996-9100 ext. 21 or jjacobs@hipcil.org.

We Mourn…

Our hipcil family recently lost the following:
Laurel Seidler
Lillian Oliver
Barbara Brave
Joseph Ruffalo
Jane Valenti
Phillip Gauran
William Appleman
Richard Touma
Astro (beloved Seeing Eye dog of staff member Trisha Ebel)
Noel O’Malley

Updated Calendar of Events

hipcil Calendar of Events

AVL Support Group Meetings
Secaucus 10am (Meets at Secaucus Public Library)
March 8
April 12

Jersey City 10am (Meets at 5 Corners Library)
March 28
April 25

North Arlington 11am – 1pm (Meets at 214 Ridge Road, North Arlington)
March 12
April 9

Washington Township/Fort Lee 11am
Every Wednesday via Conference Call

Women’s Support Group
March 7 April 4

Virtual Book Club Conference Call

We’d like to invite everybody to join the book club! Come and have some fun, read some good books, and meet some new people. It’s very easy, just pick up the phone dial 945-218-0051 Access 426-6427# and you are part of the group! If you have any questions, please call Marie at 973-777-2006.
Dates TBD (always once a month)
March Book – Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
April Book – Switchboard Soldiers by Jennifer Chiaverini

Caregiver Support Group via Zoom
Dates TBD (one Tuesday evening each month)

hipcil Humpday Happenings is Back!
Every other Wednesday at 6pm via Zoom – contact Meaghan at 201-996-9100 ext. 24 to sign up!

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hipcil continues to grow!

hipcil continues to grow!

hipcil continues to grow!

Our donation program has become so successful that we’ve had to upgrade to a full-sized storage unit!.

 

 

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Access Not Always Equal

Access Not Always Equal

Access Not Always Equal

Olivia Liu Asbury Park Press | USA TODAY NETWORK – NEW JERSEY.

Stanley Soden of Long Branch was heading down Lowden Court to pick up groceries for himself and two neighbors in his apartment building. Despite the sidewalks that line Monmouth Medical Center on his right, Soden, who uses a motorized wheelchair, was riding on the street next to cars and trucks.

The reason? For Soden, sidewalks can be less safe than streets. At a few curb cuts leading down the sidewalk along Lowden Court, puddles and potholes have the ability to tip his wheelchair.

That is one of the many barriers wheelchair users face to fully participating in the communities where they live.

Over 30 years since the Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law, disability advocates are still fighting for equal access, with the federal law enforced haphazardly.

“Unless you’re in a wheelchair or you know somebody in a wheelchair, you know somebody who’s sick, it doesn’t affect you,” said Edward Lefty Grimes, a disability rights advocate. “And until it affects you, you’re not going to be bothered with it.”

For people with disabilities such as Soden, community integration has not always been a goal. When he was born in 1961 with cerebral palsy, doctors recommended placing him in an institution. But as the miracle child after three miscarriages, his parents wanted to raise him themselves.

During the decades Soden grew up, disability rights advocates began to gain traction in their demands to deinstitutionalize disability and staged sit-ins in federal buildings until Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which would prohibit discrimination on the basis of disability in programs receiving federal funding, was signed into law.

When Soden was set to go to high school at Red Bank Regional, he nearly missed a whole year of school as the school boards of Red Bank and Long Branch fought over transportation costs for him.

“(My mom) was one of my biggest supporters,” Soden remembered. “She said they’re just fighting over money, and they’ll just figure it out.”

 

Hours on the bus

When Amanda Chirelli of Little Egg Harbor, who also has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair, was set to go to school in the 1980s and ‘90s, the school board wars of Soden’s time were over. She saw the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which was adopted in 1990 and changed the built world. Handicap parking spaces, wider bathrooms and paratransit services were among the many changes that came about.

Chirelli relies on NJ Transit’s Access Link, the state’s paratransit service for customers with disabilities. Access Link buses follow the same routes and schedules of certain NJ Transit fixedroute buses, but are allowed to deviate up to three quarters of a mile from the bus route.

This allows customers with disabilities to be picked up at their homes and dropped off directly at their destinations. She praised Access Link, but wished there could be more times, more service areas and faster rides.

On a recent trip to visit friends at Soden’s apartment building in Long Branch for people with developmental disabilities, Chirelli set off from home at around 9 a.m., reached a bus depot around 9:30 a.m., transferred to another Access Link bus around 11:30 a.m. and reached Soden’s apartment building around 12:30 p.m. That same route would take a typical able-bodied driver an hour to an hour and a half to complete.

“I am fortunate enough to have public transportation,” Chirelli said, noting that many people with disabilities live outside its coverage zone. She said Access Link has given her the ability to have a social life and head into the office when needed.

But there are many places she would like to go to that are outside Access Link’s coverage area. For example, if Chirelli wants to attend her Thursday night church group in Barnegat, she needs to ask her parents to drive her to the service.

On Dec. 22, NJ Transit reached a settlement agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice to improve its Access Link services. The agreement said that many Access Link customers faced excessively long trips, late pickups, late dropoffs and excessive hold times on the phone, a way in which customers book rides.

NJ Transit has also received federal funding from the U.S. Department of Transportation in December to make Newark Penn Station, Princeton Junction, MetroPark, Trenton and New Brunswick train stations accessible for people with disabilities.

While Chirelli can bypass some of Access Link’s issues by leaning on her parents, Soden said, “Some people don’t have family. … They have to rely on the supports that they have around them. It can be a bit of a challenge.”

Supports including individual connections, disability-oriented programs and the physical structure of the built world. Chirelli said there are government sponsored programs, but many are not well advertised. She said the system is a patchwork.

In addition to Access Link, each county and certain municipalities in New Jersey have their own internal transportation services. Ocean County operates Ocean Ride and Monmouth County operates SCAT. Chirelli said she doesn’t use the other transportation services as much as Access Link because of their limited hours that would restrict what she can and cannot do.

She said the state Department of Developmental Disabilities also provides a list of vetted accessible transportation vendors for people with developmental disabilities, but decided against using those services because of cost and the vendors’ preference for customers who travel multiple times a week on fixed schedules.

“I would compare private vendors to a limo,” Chirelli said.

Soden noted that prices range for private vendors and some charge additional fees for using its ramps on top of a fare for every mile traveled.

But being able to get from one place to another does not guarantee access. The ADA compelled newer buildings to be built with disabilities in mind, but many older buildings continue to be inaccessible.

With the exception of private homes and historic buildings, most older buildings, including structures publicly and privately owned, need to be retrofitted to comply with ADA requirements. However, many municipalities do not prioritize enforcement.

 

‘Live life to the fullest’

Wali Mohammed used to work in construction. He said his company would make new buildings accessible from the beginning and modify existing buildings to comply with accessibility requirements.

Then in 2001, Mohammed was in an accident on Route 36 in Eatontown and was left paralyzed from the chest down. He is capable of driving a car but relies on a motorized wheelchair to get around.

“There is a lot to do in life,” Mohammed said. “As long as I can get in this chair, (I’m) able to live life to the fullest.”

Soden, Chirelli and Mohammed are coworkers at MOCEANS Center for Independent Living in Long Branch, which connects people with disabilities in Monmouth and Ocean counties to transportation, housing and employment resources for free.

Part of Mohammed’s job with MOCEANS is to conduct site inspections. He said each municipality in New Jersey approaches ADA differently.

In Monmouth and Ocean counties, only a handful of municipalities have a designated employee or committee that addresses disability issues.

Keyport, Middletown, Jackson and Stafford have either an ADA compliance officer or a specific person to contact such as the township administrator about access issues.

Belmar, Matawan, Lakewood, Lavallette and Toms River have committees or community partnerships focused on issues that people with disabilities face. In other municipalities, the human relations committees or the code enforcement departments handle ADA compliance issues.

However, enforcement varies widely. Older municipalities such as Asbury Park, where Mohammed lives, are less accessible than municipalities with newer infrastructure.

A big foodie, Mohammed said he often relies on word of mouth to determine if the recommended restaurants are accessible to him and that even then, he estimates about 20% are not accessible when he arrives. Due to a lack of enforcement, local governing bodies do not keep track of the number of places that are genuinely accessible.

He said sometimes places are labeled as accessible because a wheelchair can enter the building, but then lack a path to the performance hall or lack an accessible bathroom.

“In terms of the ADA, we still have momentum, a lot of our policies with the ADA haven’t rolled back. And we still have people working on that,” Mohammed said. “But it can be pushed on a little more and tweaked a little more.”

 

‘We’re going to go back there again’

Grimes lives in Bayonne, a city full of stairs. Even getting into a ground-floor store often requires stepping over a raised threshold.

Grimes, who injured his back and shoulder while working, has had numerous surgeries that had left him taking Roxicodone every three hours.

“(It) is an incredible amount of opioids,” he said, and it took him 10 months and four tries to wean himself off the painkillers.

If Grimes’ body feels OK for walking, he walks. If his body doesn’t, he rides around in a motorized wheelchair.

Grimes remembers traveling in Englewood with a friend and traveling past blocks and blocks of stores and restaurants before finding a single restaurant that was wheelchair accessible.

“It was the best Thai food we ever had,” Grimes said. “We would never have experienced that, had they not had a ramp. But since they had a ramp, we went in there and experienced one of the greatest meals we ever had and we’re going to go back there again.”

Grimes said he has seen parking labeled “accessible” despite having no curb cuts and “accessible” signs on doors that led to stairs. He said he has gone to politicians’ offices that lack access and was kept from candidate forums because of physical barriers.

Grimes said people with disabilities have been advocating for hybrid town meetings available online for years so their concerns can be voiced. And he finds it frustrating that it was only when the pandemic began causing able-bodied people to get sick that municipalities began adopting online options for local town meetings.

But Grimes said he understands the apathy. His aunt who lived across the street in Bayonne had a disability and was homebound.

“I just thought, ‘Aunt Helen just doesn’t leave the house,’” Grimes said. “But there was nothing available for her to go to.”

 

Confrontational activism

Judyth Brown, the executive director of MOCEANS, said she came to disability activism after finding out in her previous marketing job that people with disabilities were some of the best employees for social media. She said people with disabilities are an underemployed population.

“Lots of people see disability as an inconvenience,” she said. “There’s kind of a morality piece to this. So dedicating resources to (accessibility) that people don’t see as legitimate is really rough.”

She pointed at Access Link, which deviates from fixed bus routes to accommodate people with disabilities, but is limited in scope. “So what is it like to not have adequate access to work? Imagine having to commute and depend on resources that actually won’t come and get you.”

Grimes came to disability activism through cannabis activism with the nonprofit group Sativa Cross. He found that many medical marijuana users also had mobility disabilities and used the same strategies of cannabis activism to address wheelchair access.

Grimes’ group would always make a scene. Whether wearing a wrestling mask and a bong costume or singing songs, Grimes’ approach to activism is confrontational. While most wheelchair users have a mental list of inaccessible places that they end up avoiding in the future, Grimes’ crew would go to those places and demand to know why it hasn’t been made accessible.

Grimes said the Jersey City office of Assemblywoman Angela McKnight, DHudson, representing New Jersey’s 31st district, lacked a ramp until his group confronted her office. The Mrs. Fields shop in Bayonne bought a ramp after Grimes wrote to its corporate headquarters. And he said he gave the beauty store Childish Glow in that city a ramp from Amazon.

“The people that fight with us are always the ones that get the ramps, which is uncanny,” Grimes said. He said, in his experience, the people who smile and sidestep his confrontation never end up supplying a ramp.

While he said it is important to spread awareness about wheelchair accessibility, he hopes local municipalities would pass ordinances that would compel public places like post offices, police stations, restaurants and pharmacies to become wheelchair accessible. He also hopes there could be an app to crowdsource input about areas of accessibility.

 

The next generation

Carolyn Schwebel of Middletown grew up in rural Vermont in the 1950s. Born with cerebral palsy, she experienced a range of mobility throughout her lifetime. In her youth, she could walk, which kept her in her two-story public high school, and now, in her retirement, she uses a wheelchair.

From the time she was young, her family fought against outsiders’ expectations of what she can and cannot do.

She eventually received a bachelor’s degree in English, a master’s in counseling and a doctorate in school psychology. She even got married and worked in the Middletown school district, retiring in the mid-2000s.

During her work with the school district, she found that her disability allowed her to connect with the next generation of children with disabilities, who often faced the same hurdles she did.

Schwebel successfully sued the Red Bank Public Library in the early 2000s with her friend Carmena Caivano-Stoney for not complying with the ADA.

“The kids’ library was not accessible,” she said. “It had steps going down and they hadn’t really thought about that until we mentioned it.”

Schwebel also sued the borough of Red Bank and Riverview Medical Center for a lack of accessibility. In 2007, Schwebel sued the township of Middletown.

The settlement compelled the township to hire an ADA compliance officer. People are now able to file complaints about inaccessibility directly to that office and the township now has an ADA transition plan.

The first step, identifying which township facilities are not accessible for people with disabilities.

“The little kids that are coming up,” she said. “Someone’s got to speak for them.”

 

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Hearing Aids without prescription

Hearing Aids without prescription

FDA allows hearing aids to be sold without prescription


The ruling applies to devices for adults with mild to moderate hearing problems.

Millions of Americans in need of hearing aids will soon have a more accessible and affordable option to buy them without a prescription. The Food and Drug Administration this week finalized a new rule allowing for the devices to be sold over the counter; the ruling applies to hearing devices for adults with mild to moderate hearing problems. No medical exam or specialists are needed.

“It is going to be a lot more accessible because you won’t have to go to the doctor, you won’t have to get your hearing checked. It’ll be just like going into a drugstore like Walgreens or CVS for reader glasses,” said Baylie Sappir, a vocational assessment specialist with Easterseals New Jersey.

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The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

New Suicide and Crisis Lifeline

 988 is the new three-digit dialing code for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Starting July 16, 2022, you can call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org if you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide or experiencing a mental health or substance use crisis.

Learn more

 

 

El 988 es el nuevo código de marcación de tres dígitos para la Línea de vida contra el suicidio y las crisis. A partir del 16 de julio, 2022, puedes llamar o enviar un mensaje de texto al 988 o chatear con 988lifeline.org si tú o alguien que conoces está pensando en el suicidio o experimentando una crisis de salud mental o de consumo de sustancias. 

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Need a lawyer? We can Help.

Need a lawyer? We can Help.

Northeast New Jersey Legal Services.

Need a lawyer? we can Help.

Our lawyers provide no-cost legal services for eligible residents of Hudson, Bergen, and Passaic Counties, in matters including:

  • evictions;
  • welfare, SNAP/food stamps, SSI, unemployment, Medicaid;
  • child custody and support;
  • domestic violence;
  • foreclosure;
  • consumers rights;
  • identity theft;
  • bankruptcy;
  • immigration;
  • expungements;
  • and more.

Call
(973) 523-2900
to learn how we can help.

Northeast, New Jersey Legal Services

www.northeastnjlegalservices.org

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