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Springs disabled man overcomes hurdles

By Hector Gutierrez, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published December 27, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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Dimitri Lucas has had to overcome two major hurdles to get his first job in Colorado.

As is the case for many unemployed people, jobs are hard to come by in this brutal recession.

He also suffers from autism.

But after 21/2 years of looking for work, Ingenix, a firm that processes insurance claims, finally hired him in January.

"Dimitri will celebrate his first year with Ingenix. He's a good worker and well-received," his mother, Irene Lucas, said. "We're a happily-ever-after story, thank God. He loves going to work, and he had a couple of use-it or lose-it vacation days, and it's hard to keep him home."

Lucas, her husband, Louis, and Dimitri, moved to Colorado in 2004 from Santa Barbara, Calif., and they soon discovered that the job opportunities for people with developmental disabilities weren't as good here as in California. In Santa Barbara, Dimitri, now 29, worked for the district attorney's office, the school district and the University of California at Santa Barbara.

Irene Lucas fears that people like her son will take a direct hit if the budget for the state's Division for Developmental Disabilities is shaved. The programs were "few and meager" to begin with, she said.

"So now we're starting at ground zero, and the idea is that we're going deep into the negative. It shows a stunning disrespect and lack of regard," she said.

With that in mind, Irene Lucas appealed to companies to step forward and hire people with developmental disabilities.

"Let our guys go to work and let them pay taxes," she said.