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HomePaul O’Hanlon Memorial

Paul O’Hanlon Memorial


ID: Cover photo of the memorial pamphlet for Paul O'Hanlon. In the middle is a picture of Paul, a white man with salt-and-pepper hair and a huge smile, sitting in a power wheelchair. Text reads: In Memory of Paul O'Hanlon. February 9, 1954 - November 30, 2025. A celebration of Paul's Life and Legacy. Saturday, January 10, 2026. 2:00 - 4:00 pm. University of Pittsburgh. William Pitt Union. Lower Lounge. 3959 Fifth Avenue. Pittsburgh, PA 15213.
ID: Page 1 on the memorial program. Text reads: Paul O’Hanlon will long be remembered for his activism for social justice, especially the rights of people with disabilities. His vision for a just and inclusive world fortified his contemporaries and inspired younger generations of advocates to boldly carry on. In his personal life, Paul was a loving son, husband to Lori, father to Sam, and brother to Donna and Nancy. Paul was born in 1954 in Pittsburgh to Florence (Gielewski) O’Hanlon and Donald O’Hanlon. Born with a neuromuscular condition considered to be muscular dystrophy, Paul grew up in an era in which children with disabilities were not yet guaranteed access to public schools. In early childhood, he briefly lived at the Memorial Home for Crippled Children in Squirrel Hill (now The Children’s Institute) along with his sister Nancy, who also had a neuromuscular condition. He then attended Pioneer Center, a school for children with disabilities in the Pittsburgh School District. As Paul approached his senior year at Pioneer, his teachers made sure that he transferred to Mount Lebanon High School to prepare for college. Throughout his adult life, he often joked that his disability was the reason he had to go to college. “I wasn’t going to be able to work in the steel mills,” he would say with a smile. Paul earned a scholarship to study political science and philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh as well as a scholarship to attend Pitt’s School of Law, graduating in 1979. He was one of only a few wheelchair-using students on the Pitt campus. Later, when he returned to Pitt to teach a class in the law school, he wryly noted that although the building was accessible to wheelchair-using students, its theater-type classrooms were not accessible to him as a teacher. It was one of the many observations he articulated over his lifetime about “unseen” barriers that reflect society’s failure to imagine people with disabilities as equals. Paul was an attorney for 35 years, and he was well known as a pillar for disability rights. He created progress in access to housing, healthcare, transportation, and voting. He was relentless in the mission of holding government accountable for the inclusion of all citizens in all aspects of civic life. Paul was a leader on many boards and commissions, including the Committee for Accessible Transportation, the City-County Task Force on Disability, the Pennsylvania Developmental Disabilities Council, CLASS Community, the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank, and several civic committees in Wilkinsburg.
ID: Page 2 on the memorial program. Text reads: As an attorney with Neighborhood Legal Services, Paul assisted tenants facing eviction, ensuring that they would not become homeless. He collaborated on a case before the state Supreme Court that challenged the constitutionality of a rule that required tenants to pay a high bond in order to obtain a stay of an eviction order on an appeal. While working at Disability Rights Network of Pennsylvania, Paul led a class-action suit against Pittsburgh’s Housing Authority over a lack of wheelchair-accessible public housing. The settlement required the authority to build more than 300 accessible units. Paul spearheaded a campaign for local and state laws to incorporate the concept of “visitability” in new or substantially rehabilitated housing. A “visitable” home has a no-step entry and a first-floor bathroom that can accommodate a wheelchair user. Paul’s effort brought awareness to a little-understood aspect of accessibility. As a founder of Pittsburghers for Public Transit, Paul protested transit cuts and fare hikes, and in 2012 was one of the “Transit Twelve” protesters who were arrested for blocking a Downtown intersection. In recent years, he advocated for improved accessibility planning for Pittsburgh Regional Transit’s new University Line between Downtown and Oakland. As a voting rights advocate, Paul pushed Allegheny County to implement accessibility at polling sites which, for far too many years, had been out of compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. He was involved in evaluating accessible voting machines and created Ballots for Patients, a non-partisan program that enables people in hospitals and nursing homes to vote. Today, we honor Paul’s lifelong commitment to justice and inclusion. His lifetime of advocacy not only transformed our region for the better, but guides us into the future. “It’s been the privilege of my life that I’ve had the opportunity to fight for things important to me,” Paul wrote in Live/Ability, a 2022 collection of stories by Pittsburghers with disabilities. For all who knew Paul, the privilege was ours.
ID: Back cover on the memorial program. Text reads: Thank you for attending the celebration of Paul’s life. Today’s memorial is being recorded for historic preservation. 2:00 pm Arrival 2:30 pm Scheduled Speakers 3:15-4:00 pm Reception with light refreshments Please consider becoming involved in and donating to these or other organizations that were close to Paul’s heart: Pittsburghers for Public Transit Ballots for Patients B-PEP Neighborhood Legal Service

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