Statement by the President Upon Announcing the Appointment of the National Commission on Architectural Barriers to Rehabilitation of the Handicapped.
MORE THAN a quarter of a million Americans are in wheelchairs, and many persons have some other disability which makes entering and leaving the average building a major problem. Research has provided us with some of the standards to make buildings and facilities more accessible to the handicapped. We now must put this information to practical use by eliminating architectural barriers from existing buildings, and preventing them in the vast amount of public and private construction which lies ahead,
Note: The statement was made public as part of a White House release announcing the appointment of the National Commission on Architectural Barriers to Rehabilitation of the Handicapped by Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare John W. Gardner. The Commission was established by section 3 of the Vocational Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1965 (Public Law 89-333, 79 Stat. 1282).
The release stated that the Commission would be chaired by Leon Chatelain, Jr., past president of the American Institute of Architects, a member of the executive committee of the President's Committee on the Employment of the Handicapped, and a trustee of the National Society for Crippled Children and Adults, and would present its recommendations through Mary E. Switzer, Commissioner of Vocational Rehabilitation.
The names of the 14 other members of the Commission are printed in the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents (vol. 2, p. 578).
Lyndon B. Johnson, Statement by the President Upon Announcing the Appointment of the National Commission on Architectural Barriers to Rehabilitation of the Handicapped. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/239254