Rep. Tony Hwang Advocates Jobs Program for Persons with Disabilities

Rep. Tony Hwang Advocates Jobs Program for Persons with Disabilities - creating Jobs, helping non-profits and empowering developmentally disabled. 

Hartford - Rep. Tony Hwang, ranking leader of the Government Administration & Election Committee is co-sponsoring proposed Senate Bill 761. The bill calls for making the Janitorial Work Pilot Program for persons with a disability or handicap permanent and advocates from The Kennedy Center provided testimony during the GA&E public hearing on March 11th.

"The Kennedy Center serves as an amazing advocate for people in our community," said Rep. Hwang.  "Their collaborative educational, rehabilitative and job training efforts helps so many developmental disabled residents realize their dreams of working and earning a wage and independent living, especially when that dream seem so challenging in this current economic climate.  I want to thank The Kennedy Center for the amazing work they do on a day to day basis to help their clients fulfill that dream of independence and enriched living."

Providing testimony for the bill was William Gill, Director of Marketing for The Kennedy Center.  "The Kennedy Center has been supporting citizens/clients with developmental disabilities for over 60 years," said Gill. "But it has been a lot more difficult to support them in the last 5 years due to the state of the economy and the reduced State and Federal reimbursements for their essential developmental and rehabilitative services."  Gill shared with the GA&E committee that Kennedy Center clients have been hard working citizens for the state and they deserved to have this bill passed. "Last year, over 100 of our clients had janitorial jobs," said Gill. "They made approximately $340,000 and worked over 53,000 hours. These workers are able to become both socially and financially able, to live independently if they so choose, and without these jobs they would not be able to do so."

Rep. Tony Hwang in his 3rd term in the Connecticut General Assembly House of Representatives and represents the 134th District, which encompasses portions of Fairfield and Trumbull.  Rep. Hwang is the ranking leader in the Government Administration and Elections Committee and a member of Public Safety & Security Committee and the Insurance and Real Estate Committee during the 2013-14 legislative sessions.  Rep. Hwang is a member of the CT Innovation Life Sciences Business & Government Group and co-chair of the bipartisan General Assembly Bioscience Caucus.