Secretary Jackson confirms meeting with ADAPT today
Stephanie Thomas sent this to me. I know that she won’t mind my reprinting it!
HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson has finally confirmed with Cassie the meeting
with ADAPT today, May 15th. Thanks to one and all for the actions across the
USA. Here is the story of the action that led to the meeting confirmation:
On Friday April 28th, members of Chicago ADAPT, and Chicago DRACH met with
HUD Region 5 Director Joseph Galvan, Deputy Director Beverly Bishop, and
several staff from PIH and FHEO regarding the Access Across America proposal
and implementation of PIH notice 2006-5 which explicitly mentions use of
administrative funds to housing authorities to create home modification
programs for voucher holders with disabilities. We feel that these demands
must go hand in hand, for many people vouchers will be useless if
modification funds are not available.
We first sent our regional office the information on these 2 issues about
two weeks ago. We immediately got an agreement from the deputy director and
FHEO staff to meet with us. but were told that the director would not be
available. We decided to go ahead with the meeting.
Five activists met with the HUD staff, as scheduled, and about 8 others
stayed outside passing copies of the “wanted” poster to the public, many of
whom were entering the building, presumably on their way to work at HUD.
About 10 minutes into the meeting, Director Galvan came in and remained for
the duration of the meeting. It seems that the flyering outside had the
impact we wanted; Mr Galvan made time to meet with us.
This was the essence of our message to HUD staff:
Secretary Jackson committed in September to meet directly with national
ADAPT to discuss implementation of the Access Across America proposal, but
has failed to honor his commitment. We need your help to ensure that the
Secretary honors his commitment. We also need assurance from the Secretary
that the language in PIH notice 2006-5 is being implemented and PHAs are
creating accessibility modification programs for voucher holders with
disabilities.
We said that Jackson reiterated his commitment to meet when ADAPT saw him at
a recent event in Texas, again failed to follow through. Deputy Bishop
stated that she sent information on AAA and Mod Funds to Jackson before our
meeting and will do so again. She also said it is not necessary to meet
directly with Jackson to progress on the proposal. WE DISAGREE. We stated
that the same issues were raised as part of a meeting with National People’s
Action and Jackson’s Chief of Staff, Camilla Pierce, in March. Pierce made a
verbal commitment to begin a dialogue with HHS and HUD on AAA, and contact
ADAPT to participate in this. She promised to do this within two weeks of
the March meeting, again with no results.
Jackson’s failure to follow through on his commitments indicates that he
clearly does not understand that these issues are a matter of life and death
for people with disabilities, and the lack of response from HUD staff at all
levels clearly indicates that a direct working relationship with Jackson
MUST happen for progress to be made.
Bishop stated that implementation of AAA will encounter obstacles including
requiring new construction, allocation of new funding, and redirection of
funds already committed to other programs, even though these things are not
mentioned in AAA. We said that this is not necessarily so, and that this is
part of the discussion that needs to take place directly between Secretary
Jackson and national ADAPT.
Director Galvan said he understood our concerns. He said that there are
certain things he an his staff can do, and certain things he cant do, but he
committed to doing the following things that are within their authority:
1. Contact Jackson directly and urge him to contact Cassie James of ADAPT on
AAA and implementation of Mod Funds for voucher holders. When asked, he said
that he could not ask Jackson to respond within a certain time period.
2. Raise these issues at the next meeting of regional directors, and urge
them to contact Jackson directly regarding meeting with ADAPT.
3. Contact all 115 PHA’s in Illinois to see which ones have modification
programs pursuant to PIH 2006-5, and begin discussion with IL PHAs to
strongly suggest IL PHAs work with IL DHS to set aside vouchers for
deinstitutionalization; and to create modification funds for voucher holders
with disabilities. Results of this will be given to us in 3 months.
4. Direct all states in region 5 to do the same thing they committed to
doing in IL.
5. Urge all regional directors help PHAs in their region to target vouchers
to people with disabilities and create mod funds for voucher holders with
disabilities.
To sum up, we got everything we expected we could get from a regional
director AND MORE! Thanks to the small but powerful group that made this
action a success!
That’s how it happened. A few days later, we got the news that Jackson had confirmed a meeting for today. We shall see what Secretary Jackson says to ADAPT in the meeting, and what he’ll commit to. I will keep you updated. Stay tuned…