OPEN DOORS is a disability justice-and-arts organization led by Black and Brown wheelchair users. We are based inside Coler Rehabilitative+Nursing Care Center on Roosevelt Island. Our community of nursing home residents, neighbors, and allies advocates for a world in which people with disabilities are recognized for our talents and skills, and where nursing homes really feel like home.

Our work started in 2016 when a group of us younger Coler residents—all formerly incarcerated men, most of us living with spinal cord injuries from gun violence—were looking for purpose and belonging. We joined a writing workshop, dubbed ourselves the Reality Poets, and began sharing our stories, poetry, and wisdom with youth in underresourced neighborhoods.

Our audience expanded, and our group grew to include men and women using wheelchairs for different reasons. We also started collaborating with artists outside Coler—in music, visual art, theater, and film. When COVID hit, we documented our experience on lockdown and launched a movement to protect the dignity and safety of nursing home residents and staff against the forces that treat us like our lives don’t matter.

In ten years, we have lost eight Reality Poets. They were performers, organizers, mentors, friends—and leaders of OPEN DOORS. Their legacies continue to shape who we are today. Their tragic deaths remind us of what can happen when disability, race, poverty, and institutionalization intersect in a world not built for us.

Our fight is for them.

Check out our 3-year report covering our milestones, challenges, and lessons learned.