The online rating service Angie’s List is better known as a place to find plumbers and painters, but reviews are increasingly popping up for providers who assist people with disabilities. (Thinkstock)

“The information we get on providers is very limited,” said Lisa Ryan, whose 32-year-old son has developmental disabilities. “We desperately need something to make it easier for the consumer.” Read more.

The stares and whispers were one thing, but when somebody broke in and stole their pet chickens, many of the developmentally disabled adults of Farm to Fork felt like the world was against them.

In the weeks that followed, something encouraging happened. Strangers reached out and offered to help in myriad ways, easing the hurt and transforming the feeling of alienation into a more complex understanding. “The biggest thing is they realized there are kind and caring people out there,” Farm to Fork co-founder and executive director Jennifer Van Buskirk said. Read more.

Housing is too costly for people with disabilities living on Supplemental Security Income in nearly every place across the country, with apartment rents often exceeding an individual’s entire monthly income.

Nationally, the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in 2014 totaled 104 percent of the monthly SSI payment for a person with a disability, according to a report out this week.

Read more.

Summer meals for youth! Youth can have free food and fun while school is out this summer through the Summer Food Program sponsored by the Fairfield-Unified School District.    Kids 18 years and younger can eat without charge at the locations listed. All sites provide lunch, while only some provide an early morning meal.

When Tatiana Ciudac found out in January that Medi-Cal benefits included childhood autism therapy, she was ecstatic.

Ciudac, originally from Moldova (near Ukraine) and now living in San Francisco, is the mother of a six-year-old boy with autism spectrum disorder. Her son had been getting a type of autism treatment called applied behavior analysis — known as ABA therapy — through a program at her child’s school. The ABA therapy ran out once he hit age five, though. Read more.