Tuesday marked two years since the May 14th racist mass shooting at Tops Markets on Jefferson Avenue in Buffalo, which killed 10 people and injured three others.
In the aftermath of mass shootings and gun violence, disabled survivors are often left behind in terms of services and support. While statistics are hard to come by, studies show that at least twice as many people live after being shot compared to those who die from firearms. Additionally, according to The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than seven out of 10 firearm-related injuries that are medically treated are from an assault.
This week on the Disabilities Beat, we look to an independent living center in Chicago for perspective on what disabled survivors of gun violence are experiencing and need from their communities. WBFO’s Emyle Watkins speaks with Candace Coleman, who runs the Survivors of Firearm/Gun Violence Resource Project at Access Living. The project has held listening sessions with survivors over the past 18 months to better understand what survivors need. These sessions have also connected peers, helped Access Living better tailor their services, and allowed Access Living to create an initial report with results that can help other organizations and communities.
PLAIN LANGUAGE DESCRIPTION: Two years ago on May 14, 2022, a white gunman entered the Tops Markets on Jefferson Avenue in the City of Buffalo, and killed 10 Black people and injured three people in a racist mass shooting.
When mass shootings and gun violence happen, it leads to questions about what happens to the people who survived. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that while many people die every year because they were shot, twice as many people live after being shot. And seven out of every 10 times someone gets medical help for after being shot, they were shot in when someone else assaulted them, according to a study.
This week's segment focuses on what communities can do to help people who were shot and survived, and now live with disabilities from gun violence. In Chicago, there is an independent living center called Access Living, which helps connect disabled people to various resources and support. Independent living centers are also run by at least 50 percent people with disabilities. Candace Coleman is a disabled Black woman from the south side of Chicago who works at Access Living. She runs a program called the Survivors of Firearm/Gun Violence Resource Project. The project holds listening sessions where disabled survivors of gun violence can talk about their experiences. Access Living has used the information they gathered in these sessions to write a report on ways survivors could be better supported. The sessions have also allowed survivors to connect, share resources and feel empowered.
WBFO's Disability Reporter Emyle Watkins talks with Candace in this week's interview about the project, what they've learned, and what communities can do to help disabled survivors of gun violence.
TRANSCRIPT
Emyle Watkins: Hi, I'm Emyle Watkins, and this is the WBFO Disabilities Beat.
Yesterday was the two-year anniversary of the May 14th racist mass shooting at Tops Markets on Jefferson Avenue, which killed 10 people and injured three others. This week on the Disabilities Beat, we wanted to focus on what cities can do to support disabled survivors of gun violence. I recently spoke with Candace Coleman, who runs the Survivors of Firearm/Gun Violence Resource Project at Access Living, an independent living center in Chicago.
She shared how their project has not only connected survivors, but has produced valuable research into their experiences. Here's part of that interview, edited for length and clarity.
Emyle Watkins: First, I'd love to have you share a little bit about who you are and how you became involved in work at the intersection of racial equity, disability, and the justice system.
Candace Coleman: I'm a disabled Black woman from the south side of Chicago and was really excited to become a part of the disability community in a new way, which is that lived with identity instead of just the fact that I had a disabled condition. And so I came to know the organization that I work for, Access Living, as a community member who was really seeking employment because I had been discriminated against with previous employment opportunities.
And so I actually was challenged to go to Access Living in support of another young woman who had a disability, and I made a pact with her that if she would go, I would go too. And it's been history ever since. Once I got involved with Access Living, I really enjoyed the empowering aspect of the community organizing work, and I've been doing community organizing ever since.
Emyle Watkins: You lead a unique program through Access Living, the Survivors of Gun Violence Resource Project. How did this program begin and what have been the goals of this program?
Candace Coleman: This program began just as a awareness that survivors of gun violence who become disabled didn't necessarily have the intel on the things that they needed to support them like the disabled community does. They also didn't have the opportunity to talk about their disability identities as survivors.
And so a few years ago, me and a couple of my colleagues had a conversation to discuss areas or ways that we could offer support, and we've been doing research for the last two and a half years just listening to people tell us what they felt their gaps of services and supports were and how they feel as people with disabilities at this point in their life.
Emyle Watkins: I'm wondering, what have you learned through the listening sessions that you host and how has that impacted the programming or policy work that do?
Candace Coleman: We learned a couple of things. We learned that peer support is central to survivors of gun violence. No one understands your experience like the next person who went through it. And so most often people stated that they really wanted that peer support to help navigate them through some of the challenges and some of the things that they had to deal with.
Second of all, mental health support came up a lot. People expressed that they had experienced variations of depression and different things like that, and they also described that their family members went through some emotional things as well. So they really felt that if mental health support was available initially, that would've been helpful for them.
Another thing is having healthcare centers actually have disability awareness trainings, because they felt that people didn't thoroughly explain things, nor did they treat them in a manner that helped them adjust to having a disability.
Most often folks mentioned that they felt like they didn't get any information that brought hope to their lives after they were injured. It just felt like this is your diagnosis and that is it. We approach disability through all of the identities, and they felt like that in the healthcare field they didn't. And so they wanted the healthcare field to have trainers on disability awareness and disability community and empowerment.
Emyle Watkins: It sounds like right now when someone becomes disabled through gun violence, it's almost like... it kind of sounds like people get forgotten about. There haven't been these resources or people connecting them to these resources.
Candace Coleman: People definitely are forgotten about. Just personally, I have friends and relatives who've been survivors of gun violence and they were living their lives where they just was at home waiting for the day that their body will return back to what they were used to. And so I had friends who were 12 years into their injury and still not really going outside into the community, working, doing the things that they were doing before they were injured.
And I had other community members as an organizer where I would try to introduce people to organizing work where they just wasn't privy to being able to do the things that they wanted to do with accommodations or with support or having community. And so they definitely felt left out because the spaces that they would go back to, no one was really inviting them out. They lost friends. The felt isolated in their communities because it wasn't accessible.
Emyle Watkins: Access Living is an independent living center. I'm wondering how this program has maybe impacted the other services that Access Living provides.
Candace Coleman: One of the ways that it's directly impacting our services is that, one, we're becoming more knowledgeable about the supports and services that are out there, such as a lot of folks within our listening sessions didn't know that they could get victims compensation, for example. And so for information and referral purposes, we have expanded our resource list of information that we need to support this population. The second thing is that we're actually going to be expanding our organization in proximity to where most incidents occurred.
Emyle Watkins: What do you think other communities can learn from this project? What do you think communities should be doing to help disabled survivors of gun violence?
Candace Coleman: There's so many ways. On the policy and legislative level, include more supports for individuals directly impacted by gun violence. The family dynamic. I've talked to a lot of people who were heads of households and had children. And when they were injured, they went back home and it was an inaccessible house. But because accessible housing and affordable housing is not equitable everywhere, they had to split their families up into two households.
They had to find a house that they could live in physically while their families was on the other side of town in a different space, just so that they could continue their education and do other things that they needed. But because the person who's injured couldn't find family accessible housing, that's a challenge.
And the last thing is to really focus on the survivors and what they need and help incorporate back into the community and not treat them any different than what they were before, but offer support if they ask, because some of the listening sessions included testimonies of feeling like their families and their loved ones treated them different or treated them like a porcelain doll or treated them in a way that they really didn't feel comfortable, and they wish that they would've embraced them differently.
Emyle Watkins: You can listen to the Disabilities Beat on demand, view a transcript and plain language description for every episode on our website at wbfo.org. I'm Emyle Watkins. Thanks for listening.
