Both the Out & Affirmation Center and its parent organization, the YWCA Berrien County, are fully committed to steady improvement in access to our facilities and programs. The bad news is that access to most of our main building at 508 Pleasant Street requires climbing steps, and the facility in general is not very welcoming to people with other kinds of disabilities. The good news is that our main building is currently for sale, and we intend to make every new space we occupy as welcoming and "visit-able" as we possibly can. If our programs move into spaces already constructed, we will do our best to renovate them into a welcoming facility. If we have new facilities built for our programs, we intend to make them accessible beyond the legal requirements with a goal of being fully "visit-able" and welcoming to everyone.

Even though the YWCA and the Out & Affirmation Center are far from adequate in terms of accessibility, we are willing to doing everything we can to make our programs accessible to everyone. If stairs present a barrier, we will relocate our support groups or workshops to another site that is sufficiently accessible. The Coordinator will meet with people at any location, and we will seek out any kind of additional service or technology that would improve particular aspects of accessibility. If there is some way in which we can improve your capacity to participate in our programs, please let us know and we'll work with our available resources to do everything we can. You can contact us by telephone (985-9622) or e-mail at info@outcenter.org.

At the Out & Affirmation Center, we understand accessibility as something more than just changing physical barriers, and we know that it affects many marginalized groups of people in additional to persons with disabilities. Our goals of empowering women and eliminating racism are all about access, in the sense that women continue to be denied access to many of the same opportunities open to men in our society and people who belong to racial/ethnic minorities struggle against many covert forces that deny them equal access to the foundational resources of our society. And lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender persons are systematically denied access to many of our institutions, including secular marriage, the religious traditions they were born into, legal protections, and even their own families. We also know that the result of being denied access in any way, shape, or form is not just inequality but also isolation and increased vulnerability. We are committed to reducing all three of those problems through increased access and the removal of the barriers that cause them. We are all in this together-women, members of racial/ethnic minority groups, people with disabilities, and LGBT persons-and we pledge our cooperation and support for working together.

If you are a person who encounters barriers in your daily life-be they physical, cultural, ideological, or anything else-we want to hear from you for two reasons. First, in the most immediate sense we want the opportunity to remove any barriers you may face when attempting to access our programs. Second, we want our new facilities to go beyond the legal requirements for accessibility. We want to be pro-active and learn, now, what an organization like ours can do in order to become truly welcoming and fully "visit-able" to everyone. If you are willing to be one of our advisors for determining the best approach to new construction, remodeling, or other aspects of accessibility, please contact us. We want to know, now, what you appreciate from a facility and an organization. Contact us by phone at 985-9622 or e-mail at info@outcenter.org.