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City ranks low for accessible living Winston-Salem ranked low for people with disabilities

Winston-Salem Journal - 10/8/2017

Winston-Salem scores low in a new ranking of places for people with disabilities to live, although no city in North Carolina cracked the top 100 in the overall rankings.

WalletHub, a website that focuses on helping people improve their financial credit, released rankings of cities across the country for economy, quality of life and health care.

Going into the ranking were data about conditions in the cities in general and factors relating specifically to those with disabilities.

Winston-Salem placed 147th among 150 cities ranked, ahead of Greensboro, which came in at No. 149, but behind Raleigh (No. 104), Charlotte (126), Durham (131) and Fayetteville (142).

Winston-Salem is the 89th largest city in the country, according to estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. The WalletHub survey looked at the most populous 150 cities in the country for the survey.

Winston-Salem scored best for its economy, where it came in at No. 84. Winston-Salem ranked 132nd for quality of life and 145th for health care. By contrast, Raleigh placed 61st in the economy, 84th in quality of life and 126th in health care.

"This should be a wake-up call not just to Winston-Salem but the Triad area and all of North Carolina," said Mark Steele, executive director of The Adaptables Inc., an organization here that supports the disabled in independent living. "What you hear about from the individuals we deal with is the need for transportation, affordable housing, in-home services and employment."

The top city in the country for those who are disabled was Overland Park, Kans., a suburb of Kansas City, Kans.

Among the three categories rated, Pembroke Pines, Fla., scored first in the economy, New York scored first in quality of life, and Grand Rapids, Mich., placed first in health care. Pembroke Pines is a suburb of Miami, Fla.

To come up with the rankings, WalletHub measured economic factors such as housing affordability, median earnings and the employment rate for the disabled, the percentage of disabled people in poverty and the cost of getting in-home services.

Quality of life metrics included the number of special education teachers per 1,000 students, the effectiveness of state Medicaid programs, and the presence of wheelchair-accessible restaurants, grocery stores and trails.

Health care factors included the number of uninsured people, the cost of health insurance premiums and the per capita number of doctors, hospitals and occupational therapists.

Winston-Salem's getting better, Steele said. For instance, the newly opened Quarry Park has good accessibility. But there are still lots of streets that have no sidewalks as well.

"I think some of the things that are happening here are pretty comparable to cities of similar size," Steele said. "Some of it is not the city's doing, things like the need for Medicaid reform. Most of the most accessible places are your larger cities. They are easier to get around in because of the availability of mass transit."

wyoung@wsjournal.com 336-727-7369 @wyoungWSJ

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