FINISHED TRANSCRIPT 
EXPANDING HOUSING OPTIONS FOR 
 PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES  RENAISSANCE HOTEL CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 
 THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 2012 
 9:00 A.M. TO 4:45 P.M.
This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. 
***

>> ADAM BALLARD: This is Adam again. Hi. We're going to get started with our next panel. And apologize for some reason for making y'all feel radical and all. But this is a community organizing panel, so I'm sorry, but we're not going to be lowering that level of intensity any time soon. I hope that's okay. Doesn't matter, it is not. 

Anyway -- I am not even quite sure what this panel is called at this point, but the point of this panel is to discuss ways that we as disability housing advocates can reach out and form organizing partnerships with other organizations, other entities that are doing organizing around affordable housing in our communities. 

So I will introduce my two co-panelists here. So my right is Gianna Baker with Outreach Illinois, brings together developers, community organizations, CILs are also a member of the organization here in Illinois, to do affordable housings advocacy. 

(Applause.) 
And to Gianna's right Leah Levinger. They'll tell you what they do, but I'm attention hog. 

CHI is a citywide coalition that brings together organizations here in the city that work to preserve affordable housing and expand the affordable housing entries. 

A little housekeeping. I do want to ask that if we can save questions for the Q and A portion, we have set aside about 15, 20 minutes at the end for questions. Please hold your questions before we have gone through our kind of prescripted bit here. And then we will let you guys know when the floor is open for questions. Okay? 

All right. Gianna, would you like to go ahead first? 

>> GIANNA BAKER: My name is Gianna baker, I'm the outreach coordinator for action Illinois. Now I'm on. As Adam said, we are a statewide coalition. We have about 150 member agencies throughout the State of Illinois. Access Living is one of our members and other Centers for Independent Living as well as community action agencies, home service providers, other advocacy groups. 

I would really say for us, since the beginning of our organizing, we are a 25-year old organization. Centers for Independent Living have played a role in our membership. I think that's mostly because we have focused our efforts on creating resources for extremely low income households. So there is more work we do in terms of technical assistance for not profit developers, as well as HUD-certified counseling agency. But most of our advocacy work focuses on extremely low income groups. 

Really I would say in the last few years our work has mostly been focused around some of our states Medicaid funds for affordable housing and really protecting and expanding those funds. 

So we have 3 that I think were already talked about previously, but I just want to make mention of them again because one of the challenges that we have right now in all of our work is funding. All of us are familiar with how much we have been seeing in terms of cuts at the federal level and then there are more cuts to come, if sequestration takes place from the budget control act, so we'll see 8.4% cuts across the board for nondefense discretionary spending. 

So looking at that from the federal level as well as our political climate and then for our state, I think right now Illinois pretty much is known for two things: Nationally that's our corrupt politicians. And then also our state fiscal crisis. So the funds that we have in this state that housing action and other groups have worked with to get that RO state dedicated funds that are outside of our general revenue fund has been really important for the work that we've been doing. 

That would be the Illinois affordable housing trust fund which the revenue for that comes from the real estate transfer tax. We also have the rental housing support program, funding for that comes from the recordation of real estate documents. Finally, we have the state's capital budget program, and funding -- back in 2009 we worked with advocates like Access Living to make sure that our state set aside $130 million of our capital funding for affordable housing.

We've done a lot of work recently in just making sure that when we say affordable, we're looking at extremely low income households. So that's been kind of the emphasis of our work over the years. 

One thing I have provided that would be available on the website is a listing for you all of all housing trust funds for each state, and other similar kinds of programs that provide rental assistance. 

I've also provided a handout for you all on statewide and regional advocacy organizations that are similar to us and are also a part of the national low income housing coalition so you can connect with those groups. 

>> LEAH LEVINGER: Good afternoon. My name is Leah Levinger. The coordinator of the Chicago Housing Initiative. We are a much newer entity. We're a coalition that formed about two and a half years ago. We brought on staff. Our focus is on preserving, improving and expanding access to deeply affordable rental housing. 

Our focus has generally been on federally subsidized developments. As a coalition we're comprised of 7 community-based organizations and any given year we're working in organizing and between 50 and 60 federally subsidized housing developments in the city of Chicago. 

Collectively our work affects 7500 tenant households that are in the extremely low income category that Gianna mentioned. 

The impetus around our formation was around owners in privately-owned subsidized housing Section 8 developments, leaving the subsidy programs and resulting loss of affordable housing options. But since then we've expanded our work to also look at what is going on in public housing and just conditions overall. There is a variety of things that can bring us as an organizing presence into developments. Everything from bed bug issues to rent increases to massive rehabilitation or redevelopment efforts. 

That's a basic summary of what we do. We've tended to focus on as I said the federal subsidy programs and actually what drew us to working with Access Living was the climate of federal budgets cuts that were cancelled years ago and continue to the present day but I can talk more about that later on in the panel. 

>> ADAM BALLARD: Great. So I have some prepared discussion questions. Gianna, Leah and I have worked together, all of us at least for a year, I think close to two years. So we want this to a feel of a pretty informal chat between us to find out, again, why these connections between CILs or other disabilities-specific housing groups and people doing housing work that's not necessarily disability-specific, why that's important. And I hope that these questions will help us get to that. Of course we'll have time at the end from you all as well. 

The first question I have for you guys is, how did your organization first start working with the disability community? And what would you -- how would you or what would you say to suggest more interaction between the affordable housing and disability communities and places where that's not happening. Whoever wants to go first. 

>> GIANNA BAKER: I'll start on that. I think I already in my introduction talked a little bit about how centers for independent living have always been a part of our membership. I think, when I came on I have been in housing action for less than 3 years. And when I came on, I came to specifically work with our member organization throughout the state and to travel and to have one on ones with them to find out what were the self-interests of their organizations. 

What I was finding is, I was going out to meet with our member agencies, especially the Centers for Independent Living was a concern for our need to do more work that focused specifically on creating resources for accessible and integrated housing. 

So what I started looking at is how can we with our coalition really make sure that people with disabilities are really having a seat at the table in our advocacy work. 

So we were very intentional in finding someone who was in a leadership role at a center for independent living to join our board. We had had folks in the past but just because we knew that issue was more of concern, we made sure we got that person as a board member. 

And then we also have an advocacy committee, I got one of our members down state and I love her so much, she's always fired up and very radical, and just plain what she has to say. I went and I talked to Shelly and she works for a center for independent living and she got on our advocacy committee.

And then we have an annual conference that brings together probably about 1 20 to 150 housing professionals throughout the state, so one of the things that we really did was to look at being more intentional and having conference workshops that were specific to issues that impacted people with disabilities. 

So I think in general it has been just a work in making sure that, yeah, that people with disabilities are at the table in all those decision that is are being made. 

>> LEAH LEVINGER: For Chicago Housing Initiative, for our coalition the nation of the -- initiation of Access Living came around the tea party's ascendency and we were looking at the Ryan proposal with the contingencies we were looking at. We were looking at the line items that most of our base lives in. What is happening with the housing with funding and Section 8 funding in HUD. 

We noticed that the Ryan budget proposal talked about cutting housing programs for people with disabilities and housing programs for seniors by like 40 to 60%. That was a real wakeup call for us because we thought, you know, -- were they really -- will they really spare no one? I mean, no one would be spared? It was just the level of attack on lower income families and communities which is kind of really laid bare for us in that budget proposal. 

From that point we realized, all right, we need to build a bigger intense, we need to build a bigger base to take this on. This is massive. We were looking also at the situation where in Illinois both of our senators actually sit on the HUD appropriations committee, the committee that votes for HUD funding and assesses program funding levels for housing nationally. 

We thought not only do we have the need to do something about this, but we're sitting in a position where if we do our organizing work well we hay have some level of influence and make a positive contribution to national efforts to fight back that would decimate the programs significantly. 

Our initial work $was focus on this reactive response to a really difficult situation in that part of our nation's life. And we were doing joint meetings with senator Durbin, and Kirk to talk about the housing programs and the community need and also the scope of political constituencies that were interested in seeing these programs defended. 

A lot of our initial work with Access Living since then our campaign work as handed to do -- expanded to do a lot of other elements. It is exciting. It is a partnership that's evolving and in some interesting and fun ways as well. 
I'm trying to think if there was anything else I wanted to say at that stage. That was the impetus. It was that moment and realizing what was going on in our country and the need to organize more broadly and more inclusively and form connections where we're all on the chopping block. 

>> ADAM BALLARD: I'm going to ask a follow-up question because both of you guys' answers were so wonderful, it brought up further questions in my head. 

I'm going to ask this question one to Gianna and one to Leah.

So, Gianna you work on a statewide level, you have a lot of constituency down state. For people from Illinois, down state is anything that's not in Chicago. Rockford which is north is still down state. 

You work with a lot of people down state. The whole Chicago versus the rest of the state is a very interesting dynamic we could talk about all day, but we won't. 

But keeping that in mind how you work on a statewide level, what would be your advice for people who are trying to start similar connections in other states between, you know, it was already in place institutionally for housing action, but just brainstorming a little bit, how would you say either CILs can reach out to affordable housing groups or vice versa when that's not happening. Do you have any ideas? 

>> GIANNA BAKER: I would say -- well, first of all just in the room, how many of your organizations are member of some affordable housing advocacy group? 
(Show of hands.)

So there are a nice number, but we need more. The handout that I have provided that will be on the website has a list of some of those statewide and regional groups throughout the country that you can get involved in. So I think the first thing is just being involved in some of those groups. 

I think what I learned that Access Living does a really good job at, is when they come to the table, they have already taken the time which all of us should do to sit down and really think about what are the self interest of their organization, what is their agenda, so when they come to the coalition, they can come already bearing to find those issues that are the priorities for them so that those are priorities that begin to drive the conversation. Even I mentioned our work around the getting $130 million for the state's capital budget that's dedicated to affordable housing.

Get that as $130 million for affordable housing, but because Access Living was at the table there was a set aside for people with disabilities. So I think that's really important that you first of all get involved with those kind of groups and then make sure that before you sit down and as those decisions are being made, that you already decided what the agenda is and you keep pushing those priorities. 

Then I guess the only other thing I would add, too, would just be I think it is helpful just in thinking in terms of how do we create resources for extremely low income families and kind of casting that net out wide, too, to think about who are some of the other folks to bring to the table. 

>> ADAM BALLARD: Cool. Same question basically for Leah, but from your more citywide type of perspective, how would you see those connections being made where they haven't been already in other places? 

>> LEAH LEVINGER: I'd like to think that any organization or coalition working on low income housing issues would understand the immediate relevance of the partnership. Have we seen that not be the case?

>> ADAM BALLARD: That's always the case. 

>> LEAH LEVINGER: Okay. I might be speaking to challenges I haven't encountered personally in terms of small-mindedness. 

What immediately comes to mind is that it really does factor into just like the number of people who are in the extremely low income category, and the variety of reasons that they might be. Initially our organizing base was a lot of marginalized workers, low wage workers, certified nurse assistant making $189 a month work after taxes. These are people who need low income housing. Deeply affordable housing. If you look at the wage structure for low income workers and the kind of welfare system and the level of incomes that we're talking about is really pretty similar.

Again, I would like to think there would be an immediate understanding or an understanding that could be provoked of shared self-interests between constituencies that the reason they might be experiencing difficulty locating affordable housing might be a little bit different but the circumstances that they are in are really dramatically similar. 

>> ADAM BALLARD: Cool. Yeah, thank you. 

I would just add from our perspective, the disability community perspective, and this is a guess so if I am wrong you can tell me later, I'm open to constructive criticism, but a guess, and just because of how I grew up, I grew up in a rural area, and I moved to the city later in life. Out of choice, not necessity. I was never a country boy at heart. Just happened to be where I was randomly born. 

But because of my life experience and seeing disability community from both the rural perspective and now a more urban perspective, I think there is a hesitancy in some communities, I'm not going to speak for everyone, there is a hesitancy in some communities to equate disability issues with poverty issues.

And if you are still hesitant to do that, you are missing the boat. You are missing the point. The vast majority of people with disabilities are poor. We just have -- it is not our fault that we're poor, but we're poor. So poverty issues, the issues that affect very low income families are going to be very similar, if not identical in some cases, so the issues that are facing us.

So it is very important to gently nudge yourself in that direction if you haven't yet. I don't think anyone here probably has that hangup, but I think some people do. It is time to really just get over that. It is time to acknowledge that there is a strong coalition to be built between disability and poverty advocacy, homeless advocacy, and we kneeled to bill -- we need to build those coalitions now. 

That's my two cents. 
Second question, so, for Leah and Gianna, what have been the benefits and/or challenges -- be honest -- on working with affordable housing with the disability community? 

>> LEAH LEVINGER: I can't say that I've seen any challenges that are -- 

>> ADAM BALLARD: Only because you are working with me.
(Laughter.)  

>> LEAH LEVINGER: Yeah. So I work with Adam. Access Living has been an amazing partner. I think something that I appreciate most is the vivaciousness of its leadership. People willing to go the extra mile, put rubber to the road and make things happening. 

It is inspiring for people from our constituency. You think of the obstacles and hurdles that people with disabilities run into when doing self-advocacy and the fact that they are still there, making it happen for themselves, I think is actually really inspiring to a lot of other segments of our leadership. 

So just strong leadership has definitely been an advantage. 

I think another element that I would speak to is around just the understanding of why people are lower income or why people need housing assistance. Sometimes a lot of hostility to the notion that people who are experiencing poverty have any rights to anything. I think engaging the disability rights community helps illuminate a certain facet of that problem of why people need housing assistance. And in a way creates greater sensitivity and receptivity thinking about the state of -- the reality of poverty and wage inequality and other factors that factor into housing crisis. 

So I think it is valuable for framing and reframing the issues, and for getting people to listen up a little bit more. 

>> I the last part you said, I agree with that a lot. 

>> GIANNA BAKER: One of the benefits as we look at our state is that we've had -- and you all have probably talked already about the consent decrees that have taken place in Illinois. 

Just about backup a little bit, in 2005 our state began using an annual comprehensive housing plan, and so as a part of that plan the goal was to have at least 10% of resources for multifamily housing specifically going towards extreme low income household. 10%. Not much at all. 

But that 10% has not been met. Because of the consent decrees, I think we've had more -- that's been really helpful for us as we go and advocate for those resources for the extremely low income households, because our state knows that now they have to make those resources available, even Adam talked a little on the previous panel about how some of our dedicated resources for affordable housing like the rental support housing program, the Illinois affordable housing trust fund had been frozen by our governor and was being used really to pay the state's bills instead of rent for low income families. 

I think what helped us, too, in even making that case was that there was a need to comply with those consent decrees. 

Another -- I would say I think the challenge has been just making sure as we -- as that funding becomes available, that those who are not class members for those consent decrees who are still other folks with disabilities, seniors, low wage workers, that they still also have access to those resources. 

>> ADAM BALLARD: Great. I think it was mentioned a little bit last night, the people who were on the tour, we haven't actually directly addressed the Olmstead cases yet. I am sure we will get to them in detail later. In case you don't know what that means tell you, Illinois recently settled 3 Olmstead-based class action lawsuits that were instigated by Access Living along with Equip for Equality who is our state protection and advocacy agency, the ACLU and also pro bono support from some private firms here in the city. 

And they are 3 pretty sweeping settlements that will finally give Olmstead enforcement some teeth here in Illinois.

One of the classes has to do with people with mental illness who are in what the state calls institutional mental disease. That's what they are calling them. IMDs. Private nursing homes that get funding from the state to provide quote unquote services for people with mental illness. 

Second class is for people with developmental disabilities, in similar situations, smaller state funded for DD, or people who are on waiting list for DD services. In Illinois there is a lot of -- huge waiting list for people on the DD waiting list.

The third decree, I say only, but it is still a huge amount of people, only covers physically disabled people living in Cook County nursing homes. But the fact is that most of the physically disabled people who are institutionalized in Illinois live in Cook County nursing homes. So that's why that was the focus of that class. 

So you'll be hearing more throughout the next day and a half about those, but just as a basic primer, those are the 3 Olmstead class actions that we have settled within the last year here. Like Gianna said, it has provided a lot of opportunity and a lot of chance for reflection as we move forward and decide how we're going to house these class members and still have housing for everyone else that needs it. 

Okay. Next question for you guys. How has expanding your coalitions and campaigns to include disability issues impacted your work overall? Or what have you learned about disability issues through your partnerships with disability organizations? 

>> GIANNA BAKER: I guess I would have to start off by just echoing what Leah talked about earlier. Again, when we talk about affordable housing whether it is going before our legislators or just others that we talk to, we know that a lot of times there is this attitude that people are poor because they are lazy. And so I think what has been helpful is just, again, being able to show that different reasons why people are in poverty. So people living on fixed incomes and low wage workers and others. 

For me I think what I've just personally enjoyed about working with the disability community is that it is just provided fresh learning for me. I'm a person who just within my own family has dealt with many different housing challenges from just being able to pay the rent versus the groceries to going through foreclosure and then some other challenges, landlord/tenant kinds of issues, but I never myself known much about some of the different challenges really with accessible housing. 

So I think for me I'm just enjoy sitting down and learning from others just what some of those different issues are. 

I don't know if I answered the question. I started talking and I forgot what your question was. 

>> LEAH LEVINGER: I don't know that I have the best answer to this either. I mean I think our partnership has helped us just forge a broader political and social agenda to advance what we see as human right to housing for everyone as a basic moral tenet that we would like to see our country move towards. 

And to look more specifically at the things that get in the way of everyone having stable housing despite the resources and wealth of the country that we live in. Has been helpful. 

Beyond that, I mean I think the thing that has struck me most working with the disability rights community is starting to get a better understanding of what it means for people with disabilities to not have affordable housing. I have to say that I did not have any idea the type of limitations on people's lives and just defining role -- not because it is not obvious if you think about it, but to be honest I hadn't ever really set my moral imagination in that direction. And then to have that kind of brought home was just, wow. That people's lives can literally be taken from them and constrained and circumscribed in incredible way because they can't find accessible, affordable place toss live shapes their possibilities. It is really emotionally compelling. So to that have made real to me just on a human level I really appreciate that better now than I did before. 

>> ADAM BALLARD: Thank you. So for a long time, and we heard about the history of disability this morning from Beto, so we kind of know from our perspective how this is all happening, and the work that was done was important, absolutely needed to be done. 

But for a long time, and probably still continuing on, honestly, in a lot of places, disability housing was and has been a niche, a allergic area of -- a larger area of affordable housing. It was in some and unfortunately still is segregated, limited in scope, and often limited to certain types of disabilities. Those housing silos that Beto was talking about earlier. 

Now we have more focus on community integrated settings what Ann was talking about with supportive housing. With that the model is slowly but surely moving towards housing for all. Like we have been talking about. We've all used that phrase. 

So with that all being said, how do you guys see your role, your organization's role in advocating for more affordable, accessible, and integrated housing, and ensuring this remains on the agenda with or without direct involvement of disability rights organizations. 

>> LEAH LEVINGER: One element or way of implementing the goal of integrating housing for people with disabilities that our coalition is starting to think about, and this is like fresh conversations between Adam and me trying to think through, hmm, what can we do, but because of the citywide scope of the coalition that I staff, in a give be year we're probably working, organizing in anywhere between 5 and 10 buildings that are subsidized with federal funds that are going through substantial rehabilitation or redevelopment. So there is already like an emporium of federal investment of public money. 

One element I think would be interesting for us to start figuring out how to do better is always make sure that accessibility issues are one of the many bottom lines that we're negotiating for as we work with tenant associations who are active in these developments rights. 

If we're looking at the infrastructure and scope of working, how do we do a better job demanding accessibility to the other parts of the work that we're doing. 

An example might be, there is a development on the south side that is being entirely torn down and redeveloped and it will continue to be project based Section 8 affordable rental housing, and how can we be mindful as advocates speaking to the need of extremely affordable housing overall, how can we make sure that there is better accessibility triggered, some thresholds inside that redevelopment. We're already there. We're already engaging the owners and HUD and everyone else. How do we do a better job creating a really inclusive platform so that's something really exciting to me about the common work that we're doing and how it has broadened impact. 

>> GIANNA BAKER: For us one way we can really take on this work is that we have -- I work as a part of our policy advocacy team but we also have a department that focuses on technical assistance for affordable developers. Right now we're at a point where in our training we're having to do a lot of training that I think will move towards two areas. 

We are doing work related to rehabs and foreclosure, the other part now is the emphasis on creating Permanent Supportive Housing. 

Right now in the previous session you all talked a little about I think the low income housing tax credits. So our state's qualified allocation plan for those income housing tax credits provides up to about 50 points for developers who also use that funding for Permanent Supportive Housing. So most of these developers will have to, if they want to get LITECH support will have to do some form of Permanent Supportive Housing. 

So I think for us, we're thinking through how do we work with some of our partners like the supportive housing association of Illinois to provide those kind of training opportunities for developers. I think larger than the training piece is just being able to have those conversations of why it is needed. Because there is sometimes push back with developers and not understanding the need for integrated housing. 

I think the work I really learned how we can sit at the table and advocate and get them kind of to understand the philosophy behind that. And what that means. 

>> ADAM BALLARD: Great. Thank you. I just kind of want to mention as an addendum to what Gianna just said about Litech, low income housing tax credits, something I wanted to bring up in a previous panel but I'll bring it up now, just because I can, it is my panel. 

So a real opportunity for change within LITECH is to -- and it is sounds like an uphill battle and it probably is, you know what? Integrating 811 is a -- this is planting the seeds for long term development, it not going to happen now. 

If we can convince the IRS to consider tax credits specific low income house tax credits as a form of federal assistance, then tax credits will be subject to 504. All the same tools we used based around 504 to make changes the housing authors, make changes -- housing authorities, other project based type developments, if we can get to that point, again, it is not going to happen tomorrow. The opposition will be fierce. I know that. If we can get a way to get tax credits as a form of federal assistance so 504 applies, we can see a lot of, a lot of how we -- housing come out of that program for people as well. 

I want to mention that as a possible for the younger people here, maybe that's something we'll work on together.

I have one catch-all question, we will move to Q and A soon, I wanted to ask you if there is anything we missed that you want to share. After that I will open the floor up, but opposite first. I'm going to ask if you guys have if I questions for us before we open it up for questions from the floor. 

Either anything else you wanted to talk about that we haven't talked about. Or questions for everyone here. 

>> GIANNA BAKER: I guess the only comment that I would add is just for me coming from a community organizing background, I really, really believe in relational meetings. 

So when we talk about organizing in relational meetings is sit down with someone and going beyond what the different problems are of the day and what our organizations do, but actually finding out what makes that person tick. What drives them to do the work that they are doing. What are their self-interests. 

I think it is really, really important in general for those discussions to take place, but I think especially for disability housing -- or disability rights advocates in general, because I think that what changes people and also helps to shape agendas is when you have sat down with someone, you heard their story. 

It is kind of easy just to talk in kind of maybe concepts of what are some of the different issues that impact the disability community as relates to housing, but I think it is another -- it goes to another level when there are those personal stories shared. And that's what I think has been of benefit for me. 

So that's like my little PSA about doing relational meetings. So that's the only thing I would add.

>> LEAH LEVINGER: I don't know if I have anything to add. Maybe some things will come up in the QA. 

>> ADAM BALLARD: Before we open it up to them, you have questions you want to ask? 

>> LEAH LEVINGER: I was interested because I would -- I was assuming that it was easy to find receptive individuals in the housing -- general housing advocacy community to form partnerships with. I would be interested in hearing what some of the challenges have been in terms of finding a receptive -- finding potential partners receptive to forming greater partnerships. 

>> ADAM BALLARD: Okay. Here is your chance to make me look bad. 

Is it easy back where you are from, to build partnerships? If so, that's great. Can you explain how that happened? If not? Why not? Some thoughts from the floor? 

>> MAN: I think whenever you are looking at the possibility of developing coalitions, you are always coming at it from a self-centered standpoint. What is in it for me. I don't care if you are coming from a PHS or from a CIL -- PHA or a CIL or where you are coming from, you have to go into a meeting or a coalition thinking, what's in it for me.

We've been very fortunate with the fair housing partnership in Phoenix where we have a number of agencies coming together and our trademark event in April for fair housing month has been very successful. 

We have generally about 150 people attending our annual event. So it has been very successful. And those have side benefits throughout the year as well. 

But I think in participation, you really do come into it from a what's in it for me attitude. 

>> ADAM BALLARD: Thank you. Anyone else want to comment on that? Before we open it up? The floor? 

>> WOMAN: Okay. I have had a loft success our center has with working with a lot of the homeless groups and things like that. But we have this sort of tenuous relationship with a big housing agency in our county that does a lot of advocacy around assisting the development of affordable housing and trying to get that focus on more accessibility, especially the visitability and the single family homes and the town houses and all that. 

No matter how many conversations we have with them, bring them to different trainings we've done, there is still a lot of push back. Their bottom line is to develop affordable housing as cheaply as possible. No matter how many statistics you show them, that visitability really costs very little, they don't want to do it. 

So it has been very difficult for us. I don't really know how to break through to them that if you, you know, create housing that's accessible for everybody, you know, it is accessible for everybody. 

They see us as this group that they kind of, we'll work with because we're loud and we'll go places and hem them on their agenda items, building more affordable housing. But they just keep quiet with pierced lips when we talk about the need for accessible housing, too, it has been a challenge with the development community. 

>> WOMAN: I don't know, hopefully I'm answering your question, but one of the problems that we face is a very rural community. Also the chicken and egg thing. They said there is no people with disabilities out there. Well, there is no people with disabilities out there because there is nowhere for them to go. So they won't make them because there is nobody out there, and there is nobody out there because they won't make them. So you just run into that same in the circle of them saying. 

Also I think it is just their ideals of, they think of people with disabilities, they think institutionalization so they don't think of people with disabilities as living independent. They have a hard time grasping that concept and getting the education. 

>> ADAM BALLARD: Right. One more comment and we'll open up the floor. 

>> WOMAN: In Virginia we've had some success with statewide coordination efforts. There are Statewide Independent Living Council, they funded statewide project with our 15 Centers for Independent Living that encouraged advocacy efforts with our PHSes and our -- PHAs and our state housing authority, to work with our comprehensive planning, to improve all kinds of housing and transportation efforts. 

But in addition to that, they also worked on statewide efforts to improve, get a visitability tax credit or livable homes tax credit. And then also work on other efforts to improve visitability and universal design elements in our uniform building code. 

So it has can effect up, so I think that relationship building has worked in a coordinated effort. 

>> ADAM BALLARD: Great. Thank you everyone for your feedback. 

We're going to open the floor now. So if you have questions for anyone on the panel, please shoot.

Yeah, right there. 

>> MAN: If you can all briefly comment on this community organizing phenomenon. It may surprise you that other than the president, most of us don't have community organizers that get paid in our communities, and it is an exciting thing to look at Chicago. I found you a fascinating city over the years. I recently red a book called -- read a book called bowling alone which talks about the decline in civic participation. I think Chicago suffered from some of it but not to the extent that the rest of the country has. 

Talk to this whole phenomenon of community organizing and community involvement that seems to be so successful in Chicago and how would you try and export it -- what would your advice be in terms of exporting it to others. 

>> ADAM BALLARD: I'll take that first if that's all right with you guys. 

>> LEAH LEVINGER: Yes, please. 

>> ADAM BALLARD: This is going to be fun! See, I even meant to include a statement to this effect earlier. I was like, wait a minute, there is not a single person in this room aside from us at table who has organizing even as part of your job description let alone your title. I realize that. I do. 

Also, we are in Chicago. Chicago is the birth place of the Lisky silo organizing which is what we are all practicing here, with some modifications, whatever the demand for our organization and role is. 

And you are right, Chicago -- no one else really does civic life like Chicago. But what I will say that ADAPT, you know, I'm not going to pole the room and see what personal feelings are on ADAPT, I don't care. I'm an ADAPTer. 
(Laughter.) 

Anyway, at ADAPT offers a model on -- and you don't have to go as far as they do. You don't. You just don't. You don't have to be screaming, chaining
yourself to things like I do. You can be a reasonably well behaved advocate. But they still provide a model of how to do organizing in rural areas, in suburban areas. 

I mean, Montana brings tons of people to the national action twice a year. Kansas -- and I know Topeka is not a small town, but come on it is not huge either. 

What you have to do I this I to really -- I think to really organize the community is you have to organize the community. You have to bring in your consumers. You have to make them leaders. As staff people at CILs you don't have the time, and you don't, and you shouldn't. 

So find those leaders among your consumer base, whatever you call them, consumers, clients, best friends, I don't know, whatever they are. They are people that you see at your center over and over again, develop them as leaders. Teach them the tools for self-advocacy first and then how to organize. If you want help with organizing training, call ADAPT, call -- there is other organizations that provide, will come to you and provide organizing trainings. 

Yes, Chicago does the bare knuckle out in the streets community organizing better than anybody because they've been doing it longer. That's the only reason why. But it can be done in small towns. It can be done in the suburbs. You just have to find those leaders that most likely in most of your cases aren't on staff and develop them, mentor them, develop them, get them the training they need to become the kind of advocates that you need to get our agenda forwarded. 

With that said, I want to hear what Gianna and Leah have to say.

>> LEAH LEVINGER: I've got a lot of thoughts brewing but I don't know the answer -- the question is how to export community organizing either as a profession, something that people do for pay, or just something that is like a cultural, a like a way of life. Right? 

>> MAN: Yeah. 

>> LEAH LEVINGER: Those are kind of two different questions, because the resource question is a talent in its own right in terms of having dedicated professional staffing to do organizing work. Then there is the other question of how much are paid staff really necessary for the work to happen. Right? So sort of two different issues. 

>> MAN: Yeah. 

>> LEAH LEVINGER: With probably really different answers. I definitely am learning in my organizing work, and this is something I'm not doing well enough right now, the importance of providing effective training so that people can be free to get the work done. I feel like paid organizing staff can sometimes be as much of a problem as a help. We can bottle neck things. We can slow up energy that naturally exists where with a little bit of training, consumers or constituency, a little bit of training, little bit of investment, they can run with it. So that's something I'm mindful of is just the flip side of professional quote paid organizing staff. 

My first five years I was doing as a volunteer, I would say the first two years I didn't know what I was doing. I was working nights and weekends for five years volunteering with a group on the south side and helping them get some stuff done they needed to get done. 

So I think a lot can be done with volunteers. But that's not really an insightful answer to your question. So I'm trying to think of something that would be helpful as opposed to just, you can do it! 

Let me think some more rather than hold up your time and try to get a better answer to your really great question. 

>> MAN: I want to say, I didn't ask the question as an excuse. I hope it came off the way I meant it, which is I've been organizing communities for years and I wouldn't have called it that, but you guys do it well. So any advice you have about how you can get it more broadly focused. 

What usually happens is we end up with little pockets of interest and pockets of people you can motivate and you have to watch for them and have you to help and cultivate them and work with them. 

But as a community, and I do find it interesting by the way that a lot of what I call the midwestern states I guess seem to have more pockets than other places. Maybe it is because you have a cultural history that has been more connected than some of the east and west coast states. I don't know. 

But I'm just very impressed. So any thoughts you have about how you would export it if you had to go do it in some other city. 

>> GIANNA BAKER: I will start off first of all by saying, with Housing Action Illinois, we constantly battle with this tension ourselves between our advocacy and our organizing work. We started 25 years ago, most of our work was focused on grass roots organizing, and now a lot of it has moved a little more towards the advocacy end and we're still in conversation about what that looks like and what that means. 

What we have tried to do, too, even in discussing organizing, because so many of our members are home service providers, community action agencies, others who are social service providers, how do you even begin to do this work. 

One is we already talked about. Just the issue of funding. The other part is just being really busy. I really appreciated, we had at our conference a couple years ago one of our board members who was an executive director for affordable development organization. One of the things she said when she started off her remarks in talking about her work around organizing is that we can't afford not to do it. 

She said that in really looking at some of the challenges that we have. It was said I think at the table in the far back just talking about the struggles of I think you said an agency, a housing agency that does not want to do the work of creating accessible housing. 

So I think for us with our work, we can't afford not to do it, you know, because we do even in our advocacy work we come to those points where we run into those brick walls and we can't -- you know, no matter what we've done, it doesn't work until we begin to do some of the work of the protesting and really holding our legislators speak to the -- legislators' feet to the fire. 

I would echo some of the things that Adam has talked about, just a need of -- because we don't have a lot of time to go out all the time and meet with our legislators, that's why it is so important for as you are working with consumers to just begin training people on those kinds of civic life skills. 

I would say another thing would be just to look at there are actually a lot of groups that are organized outside of Chicago and who are doing it well. And I can get you some of those just link you up maybe with some groups that might be in your areas, but there is a lot of organizing going on with industrial areas, foundations, PICO, national institute -- there is start. So there are a lot of groups that we have who are doing that kind of work, and a lot of just locally based groups that sometimes we just don't know about. 

But I think if you can at least get hopefully some of your board members, maybe starting there with your board members and leadership and they are willing to go to some of that training and then thinking about how you start incorporating that into the life of your work as an agency, I think that kind of starts. I think I'm still falling a little short of answering your question directly, but I think maybe you can come up to me later and I can give you more information or thoughts on that. 

>> ADAM BALLARD: A question right here. 

>> WOMAN: I think more of a comment. I just had one small thing to offer with regards to this. Our intake packet includes a voter registration form as well as an advocacy and communication form that allows the participant to say, yes, I would like to be involved in direct actions, or just e-mail me or just different options in terms of how much they would like to be involved, or if they want to be a part of the phone tree, part of the e-mail tree. Just different kinds of – 

So really listening to the people that you serve and finding out what their issues are, rather than having maybe a preconceived notion of an agenda. That's just my small thought. 

>> ADAM BALLARD: I like that, thank you. I'll take another question after this. I promise. It is such a real important part of this whole question, you know, of how can we, we're so busy just fighting for survival in a lot of cases, do organizing. 

The reason why it is important to do it is because when it is done right, your people do lead the way. It is not about you setting the agenda. If you are doing organizing right, you are not setting the agenda. Your people are. They will tell you what they need. They will. They know. We have to trust our people. We have to trust that they have leadership qualities that can be exploited. That's terrible. Not exploited. Encouraged. 
(Laughter.) 

Wow! Anyway. Yeah, but beyond that, beyond despite they can take the lead, they can even set the agenda. When you get to the point where your consumers are leading you, it doesn't get a whole lot better than that. Honestly it really doesn't. And you can get there. It happens. That's how ADAPT started. That's how all grass -- real grass roots action, no matter what it is, that's how it starts. 

Some people at the quote unquote bottom decided I don't want to be at the bottom anymore. And they are sick of it! And they are mad as hell and they are not going to take it anymore! 

And when you get even one or two people, it tons take much, get one or two people like that, they can take you places that you never imagined. And, yeah, it might be scary sometimes, but you will also achieve victories and win things that had no clear path to victory for before. You get a couple of really pissed off consumers, and you get them going in the same direction at the same time, you can do anything.

Any other questions? 

>> LEAH LEVINGER: I have a slight thing to add and I don't know if this is helpful, but just to speak to an experience with how much people directly affected by an issue can add to an effort to solve the problem.

Our coalition has been working on a curious issue with the housing authority which is they leave literally thousands of public housing units vacant each year. We started work on that issue because we were working in public housing developments with HUD agencies and the residents in the development were upset what was going on.

We realized the constituency most affected by this issue are people on the waiting list. People waiting for housing and had the housing $options reduce because of the housing authority refusing to lease what they had available. We did small steps in homeless shelters and people that were on the waiting list. 

It is slow steps, you find a person here and a person there and build with them. And just having one or two people to our leadership team that were in that situation, created -- is creating a whole new sense for the housing authority of stakeholders, who are stakeholders what they do with the resource. I would say the weight list was invisible to them, unimportant to them, anybody they will a duty to consult with or inform. They would work are existing resident population, diminish that population by freezing leasing. 

I thought it was extremely powerful 1 or 2 people that can be the face of -- like who are living the issue of injustice that we're working on. It has been extremely powerful, and in this case making our housing authority feel like there is a whole new group of stakeholders they have to deal with. I think it is a powerful tool. 

Are we out of time? 

>> MAN: This question is for Gianna and Leah. Who pays for the paid organizing staff? 

>> LEAH LEVINGER: Our coalition up until last year had exactly 1 funding source. It was a private family foundation -- I guess beyond the family foundation, the poke brothers foundation in Chicago. Justice Chicago foundation. 

It is a challenge, right? We at this stage are doing something new, accepted a government grant for tenant organizing which is really new. We'll see how that plays out. I think the truth is that for most organizing institutions, there is a high level of personal subsidy amongst the organizing staff. You are either underpaid, sometimes you are not paid. That happens. I hate to say that that's just the reality. 

It has definitely been the reality in my experience. 

Yeah, in our case it was up until recently one private foundation. 

>> GIANNA BAKER: Definitely the funding piece is a big challenge. And it is one of the reasons too, I think you see so much organizing taking place in Chicago because of this being the home of Sal Linski. We have organizations paying for it. Our organization is now participating in the HUD grant with Leah, and we look at some other groups such as like Industrial Areas Foundations, a lot of their funding for their organizers comes out of their membership dues as well as some of the faith-based groups and denomination that is have put money into that kind of work. 

So I think that is a challenge. What I really liked that this woman over here said in the back was just talking about looking at integrating the work you already do so that you have people moving towards that direction of civic participation. So that was really great in just talking about that with having with your intake, moving people towards that point of just being politically involved.

Even in hearing that and even finding out if you do action alerts, or even sending out those e-mails, you are finding that you have folks who are constantly responsive, those are the folks that you try to bring in and see if they are interested in the volunteering and maybe doing some of that work to help you with that organizing. So I think that's a piece of trying to leverage it for those groups that don't have those kinds of resources for that organizing. 

>> ADAM BALLARD: We are just about done. Time for one more question in the middle. 

>> MAN: Before I ask the young ladies the question, you know, Adam, I really hate what you said as far as the correlation that we have to place with poverty versus disability, but I know that it is true. 

With that said, our population in terms of identifying who we're working with is mandated to us through federal regs. It is easily identified and the types of things that we will be organizing about and working on, housing and healthcare and all those kinds of things. 

To the young ladies, how do you all at the grass roots level identify who you are going to be organizing? 

>> ADAM BALLARD: Great questions. You have like 1 minute each. We just got done so if you could take that 1 minute each and then talk more afterwards, that would be great. 

>> GIANNA BAKER: Who we organize is mostly defined by our membership base. We look at, again, with the home service providers develop our relationships there, and then engaging and organizing with some of the consumers that they work with. Then when we have groups that are like HUD certified counseling agencies who are working with homeowners who are sometimes facing foreclosure, we're looking at working with those agencies, the staff, and then the homeowners if they have them involved in the kind of work they do. 

So who we organize is mostly defined by who our membership base is. And then we are moving now because of a grant we have towards some organizing at federally subsidized properties. And then we just -- we're continuing to have that conversation within our coalition of getting other groups like faith-based coalitions involved in some of our work. 

>> LEAH LEVINGER: It is actually not a simple question at all. I think there is a whole part of the organizing art that focuses on defining your -- what gets called a base. Your constituencies. Who is directly affected by the issue. Who is going to be moved by the issue that you are working on. 

For us that's often a little bit easy or clear. People who are living in substandard subsidized housing development. Or in some of the newer campaign work we're taking on people who are homeless and looking for subsidized unit. And then people who care about those people. Would be the other set of stakeholders.

Is this responding to your question? I always want to ask you, what is the thing you are looking for to make sure I actually respond? Or what do you want to do with the answer? 

>> MAN: I think both of you -- I think all of y'all answered the question. When you talk about coalitions and collaboration and that kind of thing, I'm always looking for a way to expand that, because I truly believe that with numbers come power. 

>> LEAH LEVINGER: It is either one of two reasons that people come into an organizing campaign. It is either immediate self-interest and survival, or it is values-based, or ideally both. Right? 

>> MAN: When I talk about the numbers in power, I am a strong believer that when you go up against the other side, the opposition, in our case quite often it is nursing home industries, so I will often tell our consumers, our constituency that the equalizing factor is the numbers, whether it is at the voting poll or going down in front of them and presenting numbers to your local city council or state legislature. That is an equalizing factor when you don't have the money to put it behind the lobbyist. And we're not supposed to lobby anyway. But that's the equalizing factor. The numbers. 

>> ADAM BALLARD: Great. Thank you. That is it for us. I know I'll be around the rest of the day. Gianna will you be around? 

>> GIANNA BAKER: I'll be around tomorrow. 

>> ADAM BALLARD: She will be here tomorrow. Leah have you to split. Right? You always have to split. 

But Gianna and I will be around to talk organizing. We love to. We have to go to the next session can get ready to get started. Thank you everybody. Appreciate it.
(Applause.)