Sonia Chang-Díaz is a former public school teacher and the first Latina and Asian-American to serve in the Massachusetts State Senate — and she’s spent her career fighting for and winning the bold change that working families need. Sonia’s mom was a social worker. Her dad came to America with $50 in his pocket and became NASA’s first Latino astronaut. Now she’s building a movement to tackle our state’s biggest challenges and restore Massachusetts’ promise to all families.
Sonia is proud to stand with disability rights advocates in the fight to make our state and our country genuinely accessible and inclusive.
It’s been more than 30 years since the landmark passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and significant progress has been made thanks to reform efforts and decades of work by advocates with disabilities. But today, the nearly 25% of Massachusetts residents with a disability face significant challenges and even ongoing discrimination in accessing quality health care, securing employment, finding accessible and affordable housing, and navigating our streets and our public transit systems, in part because the requirements of the ADA have not fully been enforced in the public or private sectors in Massachusetts. They are also significantly more likely than non-disabled residents to experience violence – both by their families and caregivers and by law enforcement. And, we’ve seen this is one of the communities in our state that has been hardest-hit by COVID-19, particularly those living in nursing homes and other institutions.
As the former Chair of the Committee on Children, Families and Persons with Disabilities, Sonia has been a strong advocate for the rights of people with disabilities, including filing legislation to ensure that people with disabilities in Massachusetts cannot be denied treatment on the basis of disability and protect them from the life-threatening discrimination they have faced, including from our own state government during the COVID-19 pandemic. She has also been a strong supporter and co-sponsor of legislation that will expand housing options for people with disabilities, reduce workplace discrimination against people with disabilities, create more higher education opportunities for students with intellectual disabilities, autism, and other developmental disabilities, and protect people with intellectual or developmental disabilities from abuse.
Moreover, Sonia knows that so many policy issues – from housing to education to workforce development – will have major effects on people with disabilities. As governor, she will ensure that the voices of people with disabilities are represented throughout the policy development and implementation work of her administration to make sure the critical needs of this population are fully considered.
As Governor, Sonia will:
Crack down on discrimination against people with disabilities in housing, healthcare, and employment, including by:
Increasing funding for paired testing programming through the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination
Banning discriminatory qualifications on job descriptions
Pushing healthcare providers to ensure all medical facilities are fully accessible to individuals with disabilities.
Making it illegal to deny or deprioritize someone for a medical treatment because of their disability, using legislation Sonia has championed as a senator as a model.
Enable as many people with disabilities as possible to live independently in the community, instead of in nursing homes, by investing in in-home supports and affordable housing while shifting MassHealth spending to better prioritize keeping individuals in independent living situations.
Address the biggest barrier to independence for people with physical disabilities — our aging, inaccessible housing stock — by creating new housing that is both affordable and accessible.
Decrease unemployment among people with disabilities by closing the loopholes in our building code that allow workplaces to remain inaccessible and promoting hiring of people with disabilities in government agencies.
Require and invest in non-police responses to people in mental health crisis, using legislation Sonia has championed as State Senator as a model.
Ensure our state’s disability agencies actually include leadership by people with disabilities.
Transition our public transit systems to be fully accessible, including making significant improvements to the accessibility of the Commuter Rail and the RIDE program.
Ensure that every student with a disability—especially those from low-income and immigrant-led households—gets the accommodations they need to succeed in school.