ROUGHLY EDITED COPY

CIL‑NET PRESENTS:
ASSISTING INDIVIDUALS TO FIND AFFORDABLE, ACCESSIBLE, INTEGRATED HOUSING
Renaissance Hotel
1 West Wacker Drive
Chicago, Illinois 
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
1:30 p.m. ‑ 4:30 p.m.

****

>> TIM FUCHS:  So I have up here on the screen, the confirmation e‑mail that you all should have received, and you can see that below the hotel information, there's a link that references the Wiki page.  So when you click on this, it'll take you to the Wiki page, and that's what it's going to look like.  
As I mentioned, you know, we will be adding things to this, in fact we've already, today we've been getting e‑mails from the presenters force Thursday and Friday that are ‑‑ presenters for Thursday and Friday that are adding resources already.  This is a living page.  This is also where we'll post the resources.  And post the participant list. 
Do you have a question?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  At my age, I couldn't read that link.  Could you repeat it, please?  
>> TIM FUCHS:  Sure.  It's in the confirmation e‑mail that you received from us that came from Nichol and Nichol.org last Friday.  It's a highlighted blue hyperlink in the confirmation e‑mail that you received.  
Yes?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Sorry.  Is there a way to get that ‑‑ is that public?  Like if we go back to our organizations?  I don't have the e‑mail or some of the presenters wanted to know how to get to the Wiki page as well.  
>> TIM FUCHS:  Sure.  Well, I can do that, but it's pretty long. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  I mean if you Googled it, what would you Google to get to that?  
>> TIM FUCHS:  Let's do it this way.  Let's go to the main Wiki page.  That's Wiki, wiki.ilru.net.  So let's start there and I'll show you guys how you can navigate to it. 
I really do encourage you to look for that confirmation e‑mail though.  If you were registered for this training, you should have received it, and that way it's just one click, but if you want to do it this way, by going through the main Wiki page, you can go to centers for independent living resources, CIL‑NET resources for centers for independent living.  And I'm going to scroll down and you see under programs and services, there's a link to housing.  Click on housing, and it's going to give me a list of all of the CIL‑NET resources and trainings on housing and you'll see right here, the fourth option down, is this training that you're at today.  And there's that page.  
I saw a couple of you shaking your heads.  If you didn't receive that confirmation e‑mail, we can certainly get it to you.  So just let me know.  If you want to catch me today, and give me a new e‑mail address or have me resend it, I'll be happy to.  
So let me just ‑‑ I don't want to take up too much time, but let me, for instance, I'll go to part 1, finding affordable accessible integrated housing August 7 through 8.  I'm going to click on this and you see when I do that, it brings up presenter materials.  So I'm going to go ahead and open up, supporting housing transitions Power Point.  And here right at the top, is the link to that Power Point.  When I click it, it asks me if I want to open it.  I say yes, and there it is.  
So that's just one example for one resource. 
I don't think which finished my thought.  This is also the same page where we'll post the video once it's edited and finalized, so you can access that right on the same page.  Of course if you want to refresh any of the discussions here, you can do that, but it's also really important for folks that couldn't come to the training if you want to share this information with, they can watch this as it happened.  
Yes?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  So some stuff that was discussed here, but not necessarily in the book will be on the video?  Like this is being videotaped?  
>> TIM FUCHS:  Uh‑huh.  Yep.  That's right.  
So if you don't remember receiving that confirmation e‑mail, just catch up with me.  I'll take your e‑mail address.  Very simple to resend and we'll make sure that you have it.  So that's the Wiki. 
>> ANN DENTON:  I have a quick question.  We've talked about sending you a set of resource maps, urban and rural, state and local.  And then also instruction sheet about how to construct the resource map.  Is that going to be in a separate folder or will it be in the presenter material?  
>> TIM FUCHS:  It will be under presenter materials. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Okay.  
>> TIM FUCHS:  Yeah.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Will people that ‑‑ and I know you answered this before, and I was not paying attention.  Sorry.  I apologize.  Will I be able to go into Wiki?  
>> TIM FUCHS:  Yeah.  It's not password protected or anything.  It's public, and it's as much for people that couldn't be here or for you all, our presenters, as it is for those of you that are here with us this week.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Excellent.  Thank you.  
>> TIM FUCHS:  Okay.  Thanks for indulging me. 
>> ANN DENTON:  So being the relentlessly self‑absorbed person that I am, I'm going oh, my God, there's a video of me and Pat.  It's not password protected. 
(Laughter.) 
>> PAT TUCKER:  I usually pay for videos.  I mean ‑‑ 
So we got questions. 
>> ANN DENTON:  We got questions and we're glad to have them. 
I think what we want to do is sort of go through some of these questions, but we want to do, you know we together have the answers so Pat and I don't always have the answers, so what we're going to do is go through the questions, but let's discuss and kick ideas around, 'cause that's what this time is for.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Right.  And we've already asked you one question.  
>> ANN DENTON:  Yes. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  The first question is when you see it posted on Wiki, how do you get it?  
>> ANN DENTON:  All right.  
(Laughter.) 
>> PAT TUCKER:  We're done.  
(Laughter.) 
I like this.  Is there an acronym list for ‑‑ from this training?  
>> ANN DENTON:  Not yet. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Not yet.  I actually ‑‑ somewhere, it's not ‑‑ the problem is it's not digital.  I somewhere have an acronym list.  I can look for it.  I'm not making any promises.  I have to look for it, and I just organized my office.  
(Laughter.) 
So I'll have to find it, and see if I can get it ‑‑ it's not ‑‑ I haven't updated it in a couple of years.  And as you know, new acronyms keep coming up, so it may not be totally current.  
>> ANN DENTON:  But we will look ‑‑ our commitment will be to you guys, to the leadership group over here is that we will look for those resources and send them in, 'cause I know we've got acronym lists about housing, housing acronyms, that we can share.  So I'm making a big star.  We will look for that. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  The next question is a very large management company has a tenant who now needs a ramp for a five inch step in and out of the home.  Whose responsibility?  
Depends.  If this is just the management company that's a private management company, the management company is only responsible for letting the person have the ramp.  The ramp is the tenant's responsibility.  
>> ANN DENTON:  To pay for. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  To pay for.  
You're making faces. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  (Inaudible). 
>> PAT TUCKER:  That's why I said it depends.  If it's a HUD funded, then it's ‑‑ but if it's a private landlord without HUD funding then it's the tenant's responsibility. 
Yes?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  So I guess some states, New York just passed maybe a year or two ago a law that if it's a common area, that the landlord actually has to make those modifications and pay for them.  That's a state law. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  It's a state law. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Yeah. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  And that must be recent. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Yep.  Last ‑‑ maybe two years ago.  So the state may have a different ‑‑ 
>> PAT TUCKER:  And that's very possible.  
>> ANN DENTON:  Well and there's a difference between common area and related to the individual's unit.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Right.  For that question, for a ramp outside, I assume that was a common area, but yeah, if it was the actual apartment, then they would have to pay for it themselves, in New York too.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  So I guess the take away is the check your state laws as well, and city laws, because some cities have different laws within the state.  
>> ANN DENTON:  We have a visibility ordinance. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Yeah.  Something that's a law in Chicago doesn't mean it's a law in another city in Illinois.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  I have another take away.  I know we'll be discussing this tomorrow I think, but to develop relationships with your fair housing organizations, either fair housing centers or the fair housing investigators in your area so that when you have these questions, they can be a phone call away, and help you find those answers out.  But they'll touch on that tomorrow, I think. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Absolutely.  Again it goes back to those relationships and knowledge.  
The next question is more info on getting housing providers to have an advisory committee that reviews barriers to occupancy.  
So I guess ‑‑ it sounds like a statement.  I don't know if that's a question.  Anybody ‑‑ yes?  You're pointing to ‑‑ I was going to say there's nobody there. 
(Laughter.) 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  What?  You can't see her?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  It seems like you're asking for clarification.  I was just saying that the person who could clarify the statement isn't here. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Okay.  Thank you.  It sounds more like a statement.  If it's a statement, I agree with it.  I'm not sure what the question would be. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  (Inaudible). 
>> ANN DENTON:  Well, one of the things we haven't really talked about that I talked to Willis about on the break was finding allies.  You know, good allies in the community around affordable housing.  And so what I was talking to him about was there's probably an affordable housing group in your group that's meeting at some level of frequency.  There's probably a group of developers CHDOs, community housing development organizations, CHDOs, they frequently all meet together because they're trying to spend the set aside in the federal dollars for CHDOs.  There's probably a continuum of care planning committee.  There may be an affiliation of social service providers.  There may be an affiliation of groups that is organized around issues of hunger, homelessness, et cetera.  Those are the places to shop for likely allies.  
Having an advisory committee that reviews barriers to occupancy is great, because it gets people moving and it gives you something to rally around.  That's even better if it's connected to something else.  So if you can get an advisory committee, and that may be where she was going with it.  An advisory committee appointed by the local government to supervise or oversee the development of their report on the analysis of impediments to fair housing and provide input to whoever is writing that report.  It gives it a little more teeth.  It's not just an advisory group out here in the wild.  It's ‑‑ but since she's not here to clarify ‑‑ I managed to answer it without clarification, so we'll see what she thinks when she comes back, how close that was. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  The next question is can you demonstrate how to access the Wiki site?  
Sure.  Tim did it. 
And another question is why do you support mixed income housing?  
I'm not sure. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Can I elaborate on that is it. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Yes, please. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  New York City is apportioned for mixed income and on one aspect I support it because it helps the community.  It makes ‑‑ it integrates the community and all that.  But my other concern is that it creates less housing. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Yes. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  For low income, and I was just curious if you're addressing that at all. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Let's address it, because, boy, that's another fine line question.  Do you all understand that?  Do you understand the question?  
I need to stay with the microphone. 
Which evil do you want?  Right?  Which ‑‑ or which good ‑‑ which benefit do you want?  Let's reframe that.  But if you go for mixed income housing, you're exactly right.  The downside is that out of every affordable housing ‑‑ out of every development that's funded, only some of the units are affordable because you're doing mixed income.  That's one of the downsides of doing that.  
If you do it the other way, New York City has done a lot.  You have a lot of community residence housing.  Some of it is very beautiful, 50 or 60 units, all low income households.  Because those things have a relatively healthy operating subsidy, I think some of them have stayed nights.  But you've got to be careful when you ‑‑ when people are segregated by some label, I think we invite stigma and discrimination just by the act of doing that, and so there might be really, really good reasons to do that, and I've heard housing developers, my friend Sara Andre, who has done lots of housing development in her time, say housing development is too hard.  I'm not going to go to all that trouble to just get 20 percent of the units.  It's ‑‑ 
>> PAT TUCKER:  It is ‑‑ I mean I've done a ton of housing, and I guess ‑‑ and I appreciate the point of why, you know, if you're losing units, but at the same time I've seen people who are in mixed income do better.  And do better because it's not the norm to ‑‑ and that goes with any ‑‑ I always say any one type of person is not the norm.  To have a building full of women or ‑‑ I know, that's not it exactly. 
(Laughter.) 
Or a building full of men, you create an artificial environment that is going it foster different types of behavior, and to have it be mixed up really creates a diverse ‑‑ it just creates better chemistry.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  I understand that.  I guess my concern is that it's not going across the board.  You know?  
>> ANN DENTON:  Okay.  That's a different ‑‑ 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  (Inaudible) going up that isn't including ‑‑ so it doesn't open up for more low‑income housing to go up (inaudible). 
>> PAT TUCKER:  I agree and that's a different question. 
>> ANN DENTON:  That's a different question.  That doesn't mean is that you're supporting or denying the good value of mixed income housing.  That's about they're not doing mixed income housing the way you're supposed to.  They're mixing incomes but only the preferred incomes, but only with whatever.  So yeah.  
Let me tell you a quick story about that whole mixed income thing or the segregation thing.  In my younger days, in the mid 80s, we did a ‑‑ I worked for the behavioral health system in Austin, Texas, and we got funding from the Robert Wood Johnson foundation to do a demonstration program on persons with chronic mental illness and what we were all on fire about is where people were going to live and we didn't care about these philosophical niceties, that's what I thought about it.  And we ran out and developed about 300 units of housing, and it was a lot of work.  And we got about 300 units of housing in pockets.  You know, so it's like 25 units here, 50 units there, 50 units here, like that.  So different apartment complexes.  And so putting people willy‑nilly into these places.  I began my career working as an attendant in the back wards of a state hospital, so I know something about what an institutional setting looks like for people with mental illness, and I walked out into the courtyard of one of these apartment complexes and I could have sworn that I was on the back ward, and I don't know how we got from the ideals and the wonderfulness and the ‑‑ you know, our passion about we're going to have housing, to let it fall into such a ‑‑ you know, I can't identify for you how that happened, but I can tell you ‑‑ and I can tell you for sure that the people who lived in the apartment complexes all around this place knew that's where the crazy people lived.  Don't go in that parking lot, they would say to the kids.  And so from that, I probably overreacted.  
(Laughter.) 
But I'm wary.  Yeah. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  There's a question back there. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Sir?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  It's interesting.  There we go. 
It's interesting that we should discuss this.  There's a whole series of studies that have been done about cultural minorities and to what extent they improve or harm a community.  And where the numbers begin jelling is right around 15 percent.  That if you take people from a culturally oppressed minority, move them into an area where people are predominantly not that culturally oppressed minority, up to about 15 percent of ‑‑ if you get above that, then they start sort of lowering the averages around them.  But up to 15 percent, the minority actually gets improved.  In other words, they benefit from being around those other folks.  
Once you get between 15 and 20 percent, what happens is that the neighborhood begins deteriorating and begins looking less viable.  It begins attracting less of a diverse population, et cetera, et cetera.  
So ‑‑ and it's confirmed by lots of studies around the country, that it's that 15 to 20 percent place that you want to look at.  
>> ANN DENTON:  All I can say to that is that when we look at integration rules, and there are a couple of places that have integration rules about, you know, integrating ‑‑ we're only going to build integrated housing, and in the places where you have a rule about that, a 15 percent is not a bad number.  I have no idea where that comes from, but you really want no more, really, than 15 to 25 percent of the units in a large complex, for example, to be dedicated to a person with disabilities.  That's actually a TDHCA rule in Texas, so we have that rule.  
For smaller complexes, the percentage is even lower.  
So we're really looking at ‑‑ that's really motivated more around what is true community integration, and what do we mean, and I think there is a tipping point where, you know, if you have ‑‑ if half the people in the complex all, you know, have mental illness, then at some point, you do start to acquire, you know, different characteristics of the setting.  But I don't know where that line is. 
Yes, sir?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  The other thing is it encourages investment. 
>> ANN DENTON:  It encourages what?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  It encourages private investors to get into subsidized housing, because it improves the profit margin on the property. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Right.  Mixed income. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Mixed income. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Yes.  Yes. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  So it actually encourages private investors.  
>> ANN DENTON:  Right. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  And it's not universal.  It isn't that you have to do it all one way or the other.  We can get private investors to put money into this subsidized housing, it's got to be a plus. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Absolutely.  It's a win, win. 
Sorry.  I got carried away. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  That's okay.  You have coffee. 
We're not always following the PP or the Power Points.  Are we still covering all the info?  
>> ANN DENTON:  Yes. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  I want to assure you, yes we are.  We probably have covered more than what was in the Power Points. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Yes we have.  And that's one reason I'm glad we have the video and we have the verbal ‑‑ you know, the transcript, because we went ‑‑ this morning I, you know, I apologize, actually on some level for diverting from the Power Points, but I looked at what I had up there, and all of a sudden, it didn't seem to me to be logically organized, so I reorganized it into the tool kit and the three sets of tools that you have to have, because that made sense to me at the moment.  But every bit of what was in those Power Point slides ended up here or ended up being said, so, yes, it is all there.  And more. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  And what the other thing we were trying to do is to be ‑‑ we really did look at your questions, and we were trying to respond to those questions, so we did alter things a little bit, but we did cover everything that was in the Power Points and more.  So just so you know, we weren't taking your questions lightly.  
>> ANN DENTON:  Yes.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  So I guess a random question.  So advocacy initiatives, efforts, suggestions are awesome, so I'm thinking about the consolidated housing plan (inaudible) cycle and what are the implications of the five year cycle versus one year cycles and how the advocacy ‑‑ what our efforts can be different?  Like now when we go back home versus when they start planning and doing hearings versus ongoing?  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Did you get that question?  
>> ANN DENTON:  I think so.  You're talking about when you go home and you want to do advocacy around the consolidated plan you have to wait for five years (inaudible). 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Yeah, what can we do now. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Yeah.  Lisa actually addressed that earlier.  I'm going to look up your consolidated plan.  They wrote their consolidated plan vague enough so they could do whatever they decided to do as a community.  So that's an example of a community that is an example of one that has wiggle room.  So even if you're off the five year cycle, then they're using their action plan, which is an annual thing, to really determine what you're going to do, and that's an opportunity.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  I think if I'm in this room and I leave, my first step if I don't have one is to do a resource map.  That's my first step.  
My second step after I have a resource map is then to start looking at who I need to be talking to, who I need to be having relationships with, and making a list of all of those people and how am I going to start contacting people, and start having conversations and introducing myself and just, you know ‑‑ nothing major in the first meeting.  Always the first meeting is just introductions and talking and explaining what you do and where you work.  And then building on those relationships and then start going to some of the meetings and start having a role in those meetings.  That's what I would do.  Somebody may do it differently.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  I was just going to say, in New York City, we have hearings once a year about consolidated plans.  And (inaudible) testimony and all that, but you also have a contact person who reaches you three months in advance to let you know what's going on and wants to know what your feelings are ahead of time. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Yes?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  (Inaudible) this is an extremely broad question, and one for the whole room.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Okay.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  But we have a ‑‑ in Utah, we have our Olmstead plan that is a nice history of the services, but there isn't much of a plan (inaudible) and it hasn't been looked at for I think since 2003 or so.  So I'm wondering, the experience of folks in making and turning their Olmstead plan into an effective working document and how you go about doing that.  
>> ANN DENTON:  I've got an answer, but you might not like it. 
(Laughter.) 
Which is let's see what other people think first.  Actually you might like it.  (Inaudible). 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  I probably will.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Anybody?  
>> ANN DENTON:  My answer is to go to the people who are in your Olmstead ‑‑ you have a committee somewhere, somehow. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Yeah. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Maybe.  You should have a committee.  Somebody wrote that plan.  You should have a committee of people.  It should be stakeholders that is doing some oversight of the state plan.  
Finding out who that is, and then ‑‑ and the Department of Justice has given us a blessed opportunity to go to them and say without judgment, blame or threatening, gosh, have you seen these lawsuits in ‑‑ substitute a state, you know, one of the states that the DOJ is suing.  Look at that.  That's because they haven't done anything on Olmstead.  I'm wondering, what are we doing to protect ourselves?  Is that too manipulative?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Not for me. 
>> ANN DENTON:  What are we doing to protect ourselves against the lawsuits around Olmstead and educate yourself about what those lawsuits are about.  It's about people with disabilities being inappropriately confined in an institution and unable to enjoy the benefits of community integration. 
Yes, ma'am?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  I just wanted to add, I don't have an answer for that.  I do think in talking to the other person (inaudible) on the panel tomorrow, I think part of what she'll be talking about is how to, in her experience effectively communicate with government and get government to help you, and specifically with Olmstead issues.  So I think that would be a great question to direct at her tomorrow if she doesn't actually specifically address it herself. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Right.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Yes.  Just piggybacking on that.  A whole host of the presenters that are coming in tomorrow and Friday are attorneys, so you're going to be able to get answers to a lot more of your legal kinds of questions once those folks get here.  
>> ANN DENTON:  Right.  Yeah.  The answer you just got from me is an impatient advocate answer. 
(Laughter.) 
>> PAT TUCKER:  All right.  Please explain acronyms when you use them.  And I told you when you use acronyms. 
(Laughter.) 
>> ANN DENTON:  We'll try.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  And I apologize.  We speak a language, and we forget sometimes that we're using acronyms, because it's just part of the language.  So ‑‑  
>> ANN DENTON:  Sometimes what I do at the beginning of the training and I wish I had done here is ask a couple of people to watch for that and let us know when we're doing that.  I wish I had done that. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  And here's an FYI.  Waiting list for Texas excess vouchers, you can move to the top in two to three months.  
>> ANN DENTON:  And remember when I was talking about that's the group that we got 35 vouchers.  With the original 35 we served over a hundred people.  Now they've written it into their state plan it's 50 vouchers and because they port out to places and the other housing authorities have absorbed the people or whatever, and then it ports back to the state, it's like loaves and fishes.  It's the parable of loaves and fishes.  We're serving more and more people.  It's amazing. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  A big question, what has been the impact of the national housing crisis on the availability of section B home ownership programs.  Section 8.  That's a typo.  
I think it depends on location.  I mean I know I was looking at housing in New York, and in New York City, nothing has changed.  It's pretty much still the same.  The property values haven't gone down.  That market really didn't get touched much. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  They've actually gone up. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Yeah, that's what I heard, that they went up.  My second place I would move is New York, and I looked at the cost of living and it was expensive.  I thought I could get in on a deal.  Not happening.  
So I guess it depends on location.  What I've seen, and this is ‑‑ it's not based on any type of data, is that a lot of people are a little nervous about buying, and a lot of banks are nervous about giving loans, and so with those two things, they've made it very difficult for people to just purchase who might have been able to purchase a home in the past.  The banks have been a lot more stringent.  That's just what I've seen.  I have nothing to back that up.  I don't know if anybody has any data, anybody has anything different.  Yes, sir?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Oh, no.  I was going to (inaudible). 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Okay.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Going back to the (inaudible) I was a little bit taken aback when you said that local PHAs will do ‑‑ would be willing to absorb folks and turn the voucher back to the state, and thereby use one of their local resources.  How does that work?  
>> ANN DENTON:  How is that legal?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  What convinced them ‑‑ well, yeah, how is that legal and what convinced them to use ‑‑ to use precious local resources on this individual when they had this voucher from the state that was ‑‑ that would have ‑‑ that would presumably allow them to use those local resources to serve additional folks?  
>> ANN DENTON:  You know, we haven't done a survey about that, but what we have done is ask the state housing agency staff about it.  And first of all, let me say, no one was more amazed than the state housing agency that that happened, and then the other thing is that what feedback we do have indicates that people are good tenants.  They have support services in place.  They are not a problem.  You know, they're ‑‑ it worked for the housing authority, and it's a way ‑‑ it's legal because the HUD rules, I'll lean into my HUD person, but the HUD rules on portability are arcane and complex and there's a lot of flexibility built into that complexity.  Is that a fair statement?  
So they were allowed ‑‑ they can do that, and in a way it's a way for the person ‑‑ like I've got my voucher in Kerrville, Texas, and I want to move to Seguin, Texas, and what it does, I go to Seguin, I'm a good tenant, I don't cause any problems, and maybe Seguin wants to curry favor with the state.  Seguin (inaudible) I've jumped the list locally. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  How (inaudible). 
>> ANN DENTON:  Because there are provisions around portability.  Because the vouchers have to be portable, because that's part of the way the legislation describes how vouchers work, so people can move from one community to another.  Otherwise you would be stuck, right?  So portability is a feature of the program.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  There's usually one major reason that a receiving housing authority would absorb that voucher, and it's usually that it's ‑‑ you can't lease the vouchers you currently have.  You have someone port into your area and so you absorb that voucher and that goes towards that receiving PHA's lease up.  So that helps them increase their lease rate and keep their vouchers.  There are very few housing authorities that are leasing now.  Most housing authorities are administering vouchers because the funding just isn't there.  One of the reasons we're administering vouchers is because I have 3,000 people on my waiting list.  It doesn't make sense for me to absorb a voucher from another area when I have 3,000 people waiting on my list because every voucher I use is going to move those people further and further down.  But if there's funding available, they're going to absorb you, because there's a lot of work in administering a voucher that has moved into your area.  Billing arrangements, it's a nightmare.  PHAs don't want that work.  So you use that voucher to reduce the amount of work on your staff. 
>> ANN DENTON:  I like your plan better. 
(Laughter.) 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  It's just less work. 
>> ANN DENTON:  I'll take it, you know?  I'll take it, no matter what the reason is, what a blessing it's been for us.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  The last comment is that it's not a question, but a suggestion.  Continuum of care advisory boards oversee continuum of care applications process review.  Important to have disability advocate on board to ensure that disability gets addressed. 
>> ANN DENTON:  I don't think there's anybody who would disagree with that.  These are about having a representative on the continuum of care planning committee.  Amen.  Yes.  
And so is the question follow‑up question, how do you do that?  You do it the same way that you do anything else, which is you find out who's doing that now and start going to the meetings and talking about what your needs are and looking for ‑‑ there are natural allies in the community.  And the continuum of care planning committee should be a natural ally.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Thoughts, questions?  People have that look.  That look.  Yes?  Questions?  'Cause if you don't have any, this is where we start throwing our questions at you.  
(Laughter.) 
People are hiding their faces. 
(Laughter.) 
So I guess we should start asking questions.  
>> ANN DENTON:  All right.  Let me read my facilitative questions.  Okay.  My questions that we have prepared for discussion, and actually we've talked about some of them, but these are the questions that we've had prepared.  What are common threats to tenancy.  So our question was once someone is in housing or about to be in housing, what threatens the tenancy, and then when we started to discuss that earlier, we ran straight into the fine line.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Yes. 
>> ANN DENTON:  So we had a good discussion about that. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Oh, there was a question about ‑‑ that was supposed to be proposed to the group.  
>> ANN DENTON:  That's true. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  I just remembered the question.  And the question was how do we talk about the concept of independent living, and I think this was proposed for the group.  I guess there's a ‑‑ we talk about independent living, but yet there's a lot of resources that we bring to the table, and a lot of things that are happening, and I don't know if you want to elaborate on the question.  I want to make sure I'm doing your question justice.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Sure.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  The question was over here and I'll come over there in a minute. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Okay.  What I was asking is that a lot of the consumers that we potentially serve or eventually serve, they need to have a clear understanding of what independent living is versus being in a facility or a place or what have you.  What they need to understand is that we serve them and under that philosophy of it's your choice to live independent.  And not look at independent living (indiscernible) as a process of moving from institutionalized care into your own independent living.  And (indiscernible) for consumers that would just say I'm a person with a disability, and I receive Social Security, and I want to live in independent living.  And it throws me off, so at my colleagues in the field, I'm looking for some suggestions as to how to better answer that question for them.  And to not just say, well, independent living isn't this.  It's more or less that, in terms of not a place but a state of independence.  
Do you understand my question?  No one's saying nothing. 
(Laughter.) 
>> ANN DENTON:  I'm looking at the rest of the group.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Good.  Get on them.  Get on them.  
(Laughter.) 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  (Indiscernible) and I don't know that ‑‑ what the philosophy is behind it.  (Indiscernible) getting them to understand it on a cognitive level.  The independent living isn't a place.  It's a philosophy or a process living independently.  
>> ANN DENTON:  Right. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  We actually have a hand up. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Okay.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Go. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Well, I think you're saying it.  I think it is about ‑‑ I can't think of a person who becomes disabled who doesn't get frustrated by the fact that everybody's doing everything for them, treating them like they're four, not involving them in the decisions that affect their lives, not asking them what they can do but doing it for them.  I think you've got to ‑‑ those are the people that we work with the best.  The people who really haven't embraced the idea that they just need to be taken care of all the time, I don't know everybody's going to embrace independent living but I do think we have this responsibility to say to people, look, in order to take back your life, there are some responsibilities that you're going to have as well as some freedoms that you're going to get, and we have to focus on the freedoms, the freedoms, the freedom to be able to get up in the middle of the night.  The freedom to be able to go to the store.  The freedom to go where you want when you want.  I think we have to emphasize all those positives.  And I guess to my earlier question that related to this, there is a danger as we get more and more involved with case management systems and as we get more and more involved with these federal programs that keep putting more requirements on us, we have to be careful that we maintain the independent living philosophy, that that's what we do, that we're not here to take care of people and we're not here to do for people, and it's easy, especially because we're attracted to this field because we care, and because we want to help, so we attract a lot of caregivers sometimes who have to be helped to understand that that's not what we do.  But it's a daily challenge.  
>> ANN DENTON:  Let me ask you ‑‑ we have another hand over here.  Okay.  Go ahead.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Okay.  Troy, if I understand the question, it's getting people to think about not just living in an institution, and not moving to yet another place, and I think what Mike said is absolutely on target.  And along with that, something that you might do is expose them to some of the history and philosophy of independent living, and, you know, this is a pretty shameless promotion, but there is on the ILRU website, a good history and philosophy video, you can take it off the website, and put it on a DVD or we might be able to custom send you a DVD, all of the centers in the country have received copies of it, but it's been a couple of years.  And if you begin to let them see how other people dealt with that and why they dealt with that, and why they thought it was important, and what the whole history was of people taking control of their lives from individuals doing it as individuals to folks at ADAPT doing it as ADAPT, to people doing it around centers of independent living. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  We have a hand up over here. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Okay.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Well, the one thing that I found useful when I'm talking to consumers in terms of this philosophy is likening it to their understanding or experience of any other civil rights movement, 'cause that's really what it is, it's a civil rights movement and equality and just equal access for everyone, regardless of ‑‑ regardless of anything, any factor, so most people have at least some understanding of some specific civil rights movement that is ‑‑ affects them by way of culture, affects them by way of disability, by sexual orientation, whatever the minority group might be.  People have an understanding of civil rights and equality, and so I always frame it like that.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  All our staff are trained on all of these issues, and part of the consumer intake process, the responsibility staff person will sit down and do a formal intake process, where they review the rights and responsibilities of the consumer from an IL perspective on that, as well as talk about what independent living is, what our agency does.  So it's ingrained in how consumers come to us.  
>> ANN DENTON:  Okay.  Other comments?  
Yes, ma'am?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  I was just going to say that we call the people that we work with participants, and that is the philosophy that they must participate in their own choices.  That's the philosophy.  
>> ANN DENTON:  Right.  I have a little bit of a substance abuse background and people talk about participating in the recovery.  
All right.  So I had a couple of other questions.  
Another question was what barriers to housing have we not discussed?  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Uho, we got one. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  I think when I first did the introduction, I kind of brought up the issue of culture in housing and disability. 
>> ANN DENTON:  You did. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  And I'd like more discussion on that, because I know a large ‑‑ in New York City, in the community, in the Asian community, it's really important to stay within your community, but yet there's not affordable accessible housing.  And I was just curious how we can address those issues without creating more segregation (inaudible). 
>> PAT TUCKER:  I want to ‑‑ I was about to rephrase the question, and I want to make sure I understand.  
So your question is about, in neighborhoods where there's mainly one type of person, and somebody wants to move there, but the housing isn't there in that neighborhood, and how do you deal with that.  And again I think it's based ‑‑ it's what the person wants.  I mean if I want to live in a community, for whatever reason, and if I can make it work, I live in that community.  If there's no housing there, then that's something I have to take into account, and maybe move close to that neighborhood.  But that's my choice.  
>> ANN DENTON:  It's really weird.  Pat and I did a training last week in Washington, D.C., and we got a question around this sort of issue. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  We did. 
>> ANN DENTON:  That made us both queasy, because it was almost like how can I support my consumer's racist convictions and help them find a place to live where there's only white people.  That's not what you're saying, but it's ‑‑ 
>> PAT TUCKER:  It's the same.  It's very similar.  But again ‑‑ 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  I think it's ‑‑ I'm sorry. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Go ahead. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  I think it's different that when you're a minority ‑‑ I went to Puerto Rico for a couple of weeks and it felt great because I wasn't a minority anymore.  You know the language was the same.  My name was pronounced right. 
(Laughter.) 
Things like that.  And it just felt great to be part of the majority.  And I think sometimes you look for that community where you're not going to be any more of a minority than you already have a list of those, and so I think it's slightly different.  
>> ANN DENTON:  It is slightly different but I mean I think our answer is the same, which is it comes back to informed choice, which is where we started yesterday.  How do we support choice, and so the main way that we support choice is we give people lots of information about the pros and cons of various choices and then they get to pick what it is they want to do.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  And I actually think it's connected to the whole independence conversation, because promoting choice is one thing that leads to people knowing they're in independent housing.  If I get to choose where I'm going to live, that tells me something.  That tells me that this is about my choice and it's about some type of independence.  When you start saying to somebody you have to move here, that's not independence.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  I have a question.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Yes?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  The list that you have ‑‑ so let's say you have a participant who says I want to live in a whites only area, and then you happen to move this person there and they find out there's a minority there.  I mean how do you respond to that person when they come to you and they complain about what they wanted and you didn't meet their needs?  
>> PAT TUCKER:  I'm not ‑‑ when they want to move into that neighborhood, they're going to have to pick the neighborhood that they want to live in that this is a white only neighborhood.  It's their choice.  And I basically what I would say is, you know, there's no rules about who moves into the community, but this is the community you chose. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  I guess that's really my concern because it's almost like the discriminatory practices, you would actually have to identify these landlords. 
>> ANN DENTON:  No no. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Oh, no.  Never do that. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  I'm not saying you're doing that, but I'm saying if they chose this area and then they found out there were actually minorities there, which they didn't want, and they come to you 'cause I know ‑‑ I just want to know how you all would address that. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  You chose the neighborhood, and you need to deal with it or you figure out another place to go.  I don't know what that neighborhood is.  
(Laughter.) 
>> ANN DENTON:  Yeah.  We would never counsel anyone to present a neighborhood.  I mean that's the danger you get into.  Because when you flip it ‑‑ anyway, we would never ‑‑ 
>> PAT TUCKER:  First of all, they're never going to come to me. 
(Laughter.) 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  (Inaudible) fair housing person in the area and I'm not trying to put you on the spot.  But I thought it was an interesting question that someone brought up and I was thinking, my gosh, how would you respond to that person, one when they make the request, that this is where I want to live I. 
>> ANN DENTON:  I would respond that there's no such thing as a whites only neighborhood. 
(Cross talk.) 
>> PAT TUCKER:  I would say they would never come to me with that response because I don't know where that neighborhood is. 
Yes, sir.  
>> ANN DENTON:  You're on.  Richard.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Try it upside down. 
You know, I think there's maybe a way to frame this a little bit differently.  You know, I agree.  I don't think ‑‑ I think it would be absolutely wrong to try to frame a neighborhood or describe a neighborhood.  You know, if someone wants to live near family, that's one thing. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Yeah. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  And if they want to live near family, they probably know where that is. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Yeah.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  If they want to live near friends, they know where their friends live. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Uh‑huh. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  And that's different from supporting someone's desire to be in a segregated setting.  
>> ANN DENTON:  Agreed.  Totally agree. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  And that seems to me a way of dealing with that issue, is none of us want to support that, but (inaudible) we can also be sensitive to how it is that people want to live around people that they know or people that are family.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  And again, you know, if somebody asked me that question, I would say you tell me where that neighborhood is that you want to move into, because I don't know where that is.  And I really don't know where it is, so ‑‑ 'cause obviously I'm not invited. 
(Laughter.) 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Pat?  Over here. 
>> ANN DENTON:  We have a hand over here.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Okay.  Sorry.  We'll come back over here. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Yeah.  Over here. 
I mean we don't like to support people necessarily to go into segregated housing for cultural reasons perhaps.  But there still is that question about the 811 projects that in the independent living movement has been seen as segregated housing.  And so we need to ask ourselves, consumer choice, and consumer choice being does a consumer want to live in segregated housing, which is an 811.  So on one hand we can say we don't want to steer people or condone people's choice culturally to live in a white only neighborhood or wherever, but yet we're still talking about segregated housing based on disability.  And in our independent living movement, we don't necessarily like to have segregated housing but yet we need to support people's choice. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Yes, choice trumps everything, I think, you about I think you need to be clear with people about what the setting has. 
Yes, ma'am?  
>> PAT TUCKER:  We had a question over here.  We'll come over here after her. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Okay.  I felt like we were ignoring that side.  Sorry.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  We have kind of an interesting version of this in the north country of New York, because rather than ‑‑ the cultural desire people have is I've lived in this remote region of the Adirondack Mountains my entire life and even though I have a disability now and I'm requiring 24 hours of aid type assistance, I still feel like I should be able to live in the trailer, you know, five feet off the ground to avoid snow in the Canadian border and it's very difficult to help people understand what options are available and to have them move to somewhere that ‑‑ where services might be available and that a lot of people actually choose to live in a nursing home because they're not willing to live in a big city like Plattsburg. 
(Laughter.) 
Which I mean is the largest number of services are available there when we're talking about that region.  And for them culturally, it's unacceptable to give up, you know, Chattaway or west AZ, when for them it's more culturally acceptable to live in that little town where their neighbors are five miles away and they all know each other and that's the only place they live and that's the only place they're comfortable living.  So it's a similar issue but it's not necessarily racial, but for them culturally it's very, very difficult for them to imagine living in a different setting. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Right.  And again I think part of the housing specialist's role around supporting choice is to lay out sort of the pros and cons in a very clear sort of way, and then let people ‑‑ and people pick.  Not let people pick.  People pick no matter what.  They're make being the choices no matter what, but also in supporting people in making a different choice six or 12 months later. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  I promised him over here.  I promised. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Okay.  I'm just making trouble.  I'll go and sit down.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  (Inaudible) to me this question is particularly a question ‑‑ or the question around race, but also all of the comments that everybody else has been saying since then poses, you know, poses a fundamental question for independent living specifically, because you got on the one hand, the core ‑‑ one of the core principles of independent living is choice.  And not only does ‑‑ not only does the ‑‑ not only does the individual get to make the choice, but our job in independent living is to do everything that we can to support that choice and make that choice ‑‑ and make that choice a reality.  
Some of what I ‑‑ so it's a little concerning for me.  Some of what I heard in those comments is, well, we can support choice when it comes to the type of housing that somebody wants, but we're a little more squishy on whether we can support or facilitate that choice when it comes to something that we might find that we personally are not quite so comfortable with.  
>> ANN DENTON:  Boy, that's a real ‑‑ that's the $64,000 question as they used to say and I think you are running up against the general ‑‑ you know, not wanting under any circumstances ever to support racism.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  But at the same time, you know at the same time if they can find a neighborhood and they tell me the neighborhood that they want to move to, I don't care why they're moving to that neighborhood.  I mean that's my personal opinion.  I'm not going to go into that question.  But if it's a ‑‑ and I actually had an incident where I used to do an employment program, and the person who was doing the hiring said I only want you to send me Mexicans, 'cause they work hard and they don't ask questions. 
(Laughter.) 
>> ANN DENTON:  Yikes. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  And I said what?  And he repeated it because he didn't see a problem with it, and I said you need to work with someone else.  That was my preference, and I was not going to work with somebody.  First of all he didn't want them to ask questions.  I just was like, sorry.  That means you want to take advantage of somebody.  
But if somebody says I want to work for this company, then that's their priority.  I mean that's their choice.  I don't ‑‑ I'm not going to dictate where somebody can work or live.  I don't care if it's racist or whatever.  It's not my place.  I'm not living there, and if that's what you want and you understand where you're going, go.  
>> ANN DENTON:  We had a hand over here but we had a hand over here too. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Over here first and then we'll come over here. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Then we're back to you. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  I'll try and make it quick.  I was just glad that the gentleman from Arizona I believe brought up 811 housing.  Yes there have been some changes, but there's still a whole lot of segregated 811 housing out there, and housing stock, and whether we talk about informed decisions that people are making for these housing specialists who are working with individuals coming out, part of that is giving information, and sometimes, you know, in Kay's example, she had lived on her own before.  A lot of people may not have the benefit of that experience.  So when they're making that decision, they might be just so anxious to get out or may not have the money, that when they're looking at those options, they might not be thinking in advance once they get out, there's no portable voucher once they get in that housing unit, you know, it may be very, very difficult to ever move again financially.  So that's some information that they should have. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Yes.  Part of the informed choice.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  We have a question over here.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  I was just going to add one thing about the gentleman who spoke before.  I'm sorry.  I don't remember his name.  But just to raise the issue of funding sources, depending on where your funding is coming from, you might have (inaudible) in which case supporting ‑‑ that gray area between supporting choice and then what as you as an organization are ‑‑ what can you do or not do that might promote segregation.  That's just to raise that issue.  I don't have anything great to say about it, unfortunately.  
>> ANN DENTON:  Well, I'm not sure ‑‑ what I heard Andrew saying, are there limits to our passionate commitment to choice is sort of what I heard.  Is there a place where we come up against our own values and don't support somebody's choice, and that's the danger zone, because that's what has always happened, is that I look at Pat and say ‑‑ 
>> PAT TUCKER:  I need to be in an all black neighborhood.  Yeah, I know. 
(Laughter.) 
>> ANN DENTON:  No.  What I was going to say is detox. 
(Laughter.) 
But, yeah.  
So that's ‑‑ so that's ‑‑ so that is it.  I guess I would say from the perspective of, you know ‑‑ I think that there is a passionate commitment to choice.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Questions?  Last thoughts?  We're heading into the finish line. 
>> ANN DENTON:  We have ten minutes here.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Not even ten.  In less than ten.  Thoughts, questions?  
>> ANN DENTON:  You didn't know you were going to start such a big rumpus.  You knew it and you did it on purpose?  
>> PAT TUCKER:  She knew what she was doing. 
Any thoughts?  Questions?  Anything we didn't cover that you wished we had?  Anything ‑‑ anything you want Access Living to cover?  
Sorry.  
>> ANN DENTON:  I threatened that we would have a great big long list but I don't think we've actually done that. 
All right.  Well then I would say thank you very much, and I will see you tomorrow at lunchtime, and this has been great, and I hope that this learning community continues, the four days that you're here. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  And I will not see you, so it's been a blast for me, and I don't know if there's any type of announcements?  
(Applause.)