I was recently featured in a Newsday article examining a growing reality for disabled jobseekers on Long Island: when traditional employment systems repeatedly shut people out, many of us turn to entrepreneurship — not out of preference, but out of necessity.
My experience is far from unique. Like many disabled professionals, I have the skills, experience, and motivation to work. Yet time and again, I encountered barriers that had nothing to do with my qualifications and everything to do with outdated perceptions of disability, rigid workplace structures, and inaccessible hiring practices.
The Newsday piece highlights how disabled jobseekers, after facing persistent rejection, are choosing to build their own opportunities. I shared my story as part of that reporting because it reflects a broader systemic issue. Entrepreneurship can offer flexibility, autonomy, and control over one’s work environment — things that are often missing in traditional employment for people with disabilities.
However, it’s important to be clear: self-employment should not be the default solution to discrimination. Starting a business is demanding, financially risky, and requires access to resources that not everyone has. The fact that so many disabled professionals feel pushed in this direction should concern employers, policymakers, and anyone who claims to value inclusion.
My hope in participating in this article was to move the conversation beyond inspiration and toward accountability. Disabled people are not lacking talent or ambition. What’s lacking is a job market that consistently values us, invests in us, and adapts to meet us where we are.
Until that changes, many of us will continue to carve our own paths — not because it’s easy, but because it’s the only way forward.
To read the full Newsday article, click here.
Thank you to Newsday for covering this issue and for giving space to the voices of disabled professionals who are too often excluded from the conversation!
