Help
In short
Help when you need it. Newly Blind covers the first 30 days after vision loss. Types of Blindness explains the major conditions in plain language. Find Help in Your State, Know Your Rights, Resources, and Voting point you to real assistance — and Contact reaches a human being.
Newly Blind: First 30 Days
Losing your vision is a shock, and the first month is about getting steady, not getting everything. Make three calls: your state's blind or vocational rehabilitation agency, the free NLS talking-book library, and Hadley.
Types of Blindness
Blindness isn’t one condition — it’s many, from macular degeneration and glaucoma to diabetic retinopathy, each affecting vision differently. The reassuring news: most types are manageable or treatable, especially caught early, and total blindness is rare — most blind people have some usable vision.
Blind Services by State
Help for blind residents is mostly run state by state — and the best-funded program most people have never heard of is the blind vending program. Start there.
Vocational Rehabilitation & O&M Training
The front door to almost everything: how vocational rehabilitation works — who qualifies, the 60-day eligibility and 90-day plan deadlines the law gives you, what can never be charged — plus O&M cane-travel training and the free Older Blind program for people 55 and up.
Know Your Rights
Denied, refused, or shut out? The federal complaint routes that exist for blind people — which law covers your problem (jobs, government, businesses, planes, housing, schools, phones and TV), where to file, the deadlines that can end a claim, and the free Protection & Advocacy and Client Assistance Program advocates in every state.
Blind Myths, Busted
The claims blind people get told every day — that legally blind means seeing nothing, that the dog reads traffic lights, that AI has replaced the cane, that every state pays a blind pension — checked one by one against the law and the official sources, with the verdict in plain words and the money and state doors where the full busts live.
Resources
Free training, apps, podcasts, and communities — including the ones nobody told you about. No gatekeeping: if it helps blind people, it belongs here.
Mental Health
Blindness and mental health, without the pity: the 988 crisis line and how to reach it by phone, blind peer support that gets it, and how to find a therapist who works accessibly. If things feel heavy, start here.
Voting
Federal law — the Help America Vote Act of 2002 — requires at least one accessible voting machine, with an audio headset and tactile keys, at every polling place for federal elections. If a poll worker does not know how to set it up, ask for the head poll worker, then call the Election Protection hotline at 1-866-OUR-VOTE (1-866-687-8683).
Contact
Tell us what's on your mind — pick the reason below and we'll ask the right questions. Every message is read by a person, and we usually reply within a couple of days.
Last updated: October 21, 2026.