Author Jonathan Foiles on Empowering Chicagoans with Disabilities

As we observe the United Nations' International Day of Persons with Disabilities from November 30 through December 4, we asked local author Jonathan Foiles to share an exclusive discussion with us. Foiles, a psychotherapist working in Chicago, explores how Chicagoans with disabilities and their advocates are working to shift the narrative to one of empowerment.

Inspired by his first-hand experiences with patients, Foiles wrote This City is Killing Me: Community Trauma and Toxic Stress in Urban America. He offers an empathetic look at how the pressures of surviving in an urban environment—including unemployment, poverty and violence—make finding help even more difficult and shares a call to action to help heal our communities.