San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Inspiration rolls on
From housing to happiness, tireless advocate on a mission to bolster resources for disabled
The last time Chris Salas saw Sen. Ted Cruz, it was on a first-name basis.
Salas was lobbying for disability rights — particularly housing accessibility — on Capitol Hill with the United Spinal Association, as he does every year, when the Texas Republican entered the room. Cruz made his way down the line, shaking hands with the several dozen people waiting to greet him.
When it was his turn, Salas thought he’d break the ice with a joke: “This is like, the fifth time we’ve met — can I call you Ted?”
Asked what Cruz’s response was, Salas laughed. “He said, ‘Sure,’ of course.
“One of my sayings is, ‘Don’t be afraid of the alphabet people.’ ” Salas paused, then explained his meaning. “You know, the people with all the letters after their names — J.D., M.D., PhD. Anyone who knows me knows that I’ll talk to the CEO of a company the same way I talk to the janitor — which is as it should be.”
Salas, paralyzed from the chest down due to a spinal cord injury, is the founder of Rolling Inspiration. The stated mission of the local nonprofit, started in 2010, is “helping all people with mobility impairments by improving their quality of life through fellowship and community, reintegration and activity programs.” It runs a support group that typically meets twice a month.
“We share knowledge and build confidence to show those with disabilities that a meaningful, productive life is still possible,” Salas said. One of the nonprofit’s catchphrases – “Stop existing, start living” – aptly sums up its approach.
Like so many other nonprofits, Rolling Inspiration was hit hard by the pandemic, and Salas himself hasn’t taken a salary since February.
“My passion is stronger than my pursuit of profit,” he said. “People always work until their cup is full, and unfortunately I use a colander.”
The group also doubles as the San Antonio chapter of the United Spinal Association, which organizes a “Roll on Capitol Hill” each year, a policy event where participants lobby their members of Congress on disability-rights issues. That’s where Salas had his encounter with Sen. Cruz.
“Chris uses all his energy advocating for a more sustainable future for people living with any type of disability and encouraging those who have spinal cord injuries as they
adapt to the changes in lifestyle caused by traumatic experiences,” said Rachel Cywinski, who became disabled after a motor vehicle crash ruptured six of her discs. She served with
Salas on the city’s Disability Access Advisory Committee.
“He’s relentless in a very quiet way that people listen to,” she said.
Salas has been paralyzed since 1997 when he was 21 years old. He was working as a sales representative for a lawn care company when he fell asleep at the wheel — and plowed into the back of an 18-wheeler.
He fractured his fifth cervical vertebra (known as “C5”) but was otherwise uninjured.
Salas received rehab services at what is now the South Presa Community Center. He had no idea he would be paralyzed for life.
“I thought you went to rehab and you came out walking,” Salas said. “I was ignorant to the fact that you don’t necessarily get better and walk out.”
“Somebody once asked me, ‘How can you accept not being able to walk again?’ ” Salas said. “I’ve never ‘accepted’ that, but I’m not going to wait to live my life.”
While he still hopes some future medical advance could cure his condition, “if this is the best or worst that my life gets, I am content with my life,” he said.
That wasn’t always the case. “I went through the phases of wanting to die. ‘How can I die?’‘Who can help me?’ ” he said. “It’s like ‘Groundhog Day.’ You’re tired of not doing the same thing over and over.”
But he finally got to the point where he didn’t want to
die.
“And then I got to the point where I wanted to live,” he said. “Because not wanting to die and wanting to live are two different things.”
Eventually, Salas began to volunteer for the transportation system at South Presa Community Center. He was asked one day to speak to a new patient who also had suffered a severe spinal cord injury.
It was in that moment that Salas realized that helping other people with disabilities to live happy and meaningful lives was his personal mission.
In 2013, he graduated summa cum laude with an associate’s degree in fine arts with an emphasis on psychology from St. Philip’s College. Shortly afterward, his health took a turn for the worse, and Salas entered a nursing home from 2014 to 2019.
“One of the big issues I had when it came time to leave the nursing home was finding a place to live,” Salas said.
That’s when his passion for advocacy surrounding housing accessibility for the disabled was ignited.
Salas said finding his own apartment was challenging since only 5 percent of new complexes in San Antonio are required to offer accessible units.
“This is something that had already been on my radar; but when you experience it firsthand, it become even more real,” he said.
San Antonio has a serious shortage in housing with safe and comprehensive wheelchair access, and that’s why Salas’ work is so important, Cywinski said.
Salas said his personal goal
would be to see the required number of accessible apartments increase to at least 10 percent.
“It would be nice to have more, but I’m also a realist as well as an optimist,” he said. “I think 10 percent is a feasible number that can be implemented by the government.”
Salas said that number should be applied only to newconstruction units — retrofitting every building would be cost-prohibitive.
Salas also hopes that someday such units are touted as “universal-design units” instead of “accessible units,” for the purposes of gaining broader support.
But Salas isn’t focused on just housing.
While most buildings in San Antonio comply with the Americans with Disabilities
Act, Salas said his mission is to make them a little more ADAconvenient.
“There’s a big difference between being compliant and being convenient,” he added.
Being in a wheelchair “is not a role that most people are in, so they just don’t know until they have to,” he said. “Lowering a step by half an inch can make the difference between accessible and inaccessible.
“A little thing like having door handles instead of knobs can make a huge difference,” he added.
Two of the most important features for a building to be fully accessible are easy access to the building itself, including a front ramp entrance, and fully accessible bathrooms, making them the most critical items to retrofit, Salas said.
For new construction, multiple elevators should be a definite “must,” he said, as well
as doors wide enough to accommodate wheelchairs. Ideally, there should be pushbutton access on at least one set of exterior doors.
Salas said an important part of his advocacy work is going to the source of the problem and educating people about accessibility needs.
For example, when he was a student at St. Philip’s, modifications were being done on a building that had only one elevator, which was breaking down all the time, he said.
“I went straight to the board of Alamo Colleges, and not only did they agree to replace that elevator, but they put in two new elevators,” he added.
Cywinski said that what’s unique about Salas is that he’s so patient with people who don’t understand and tells his story in a way that makes people listen. In addition, he’s willing to do whatever he’s asked — sharing his story, speaking to corporate leaders and traveling to events such as “Roll on Capitol Hill.”
“He does know how to speak up, and it takes a lot of effort,” she pointed out.
“When people have spinal injuries, it is so much effort to use your physical strength when you have such limited physical strength to do anything.”
In addition to his advocacy work, Salas volunteers at
Warm Springs Rehab Center and Fort Sam Houston and gives guest lectures to students in physical therapy programs at University of the Incarnate Word and other schools.
“I help bridge the gap between what they learn in books and what they’ll see in real life,” he said.
He also serves as an ambassador for the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, having started out as a peer mentor.
Salas’ message to other disabled people: “I want to live now, and you will, too.
“I have every excuse in the book to not be a productive person and people wouldn’t blink an eye, but that’s just not my personality,” Salas said. “Life is too short to not live. Disabled is a label I intend to redefine.”