February 2018 New HorizonsHousing That Supports Independence Chicago Tribune Wins 2017 Disability Reporting Award Posted on October 20, 201711 by 12 A Chicago Tribune investigation into the mistreatment of disabled adults in Illinois group homes won the top honor in the 2017 Katherine Schneider Journalism Award for Excellence in Reporting on Disability, the only journalism awards competition devoted exclusively to disability reporting. Norman A. Smith Editor In “Suffering in Secret13,” Tribune reporters Michael J. Berens and Patricia Callahan identified more than Judith A. Wilkinson Co-Editor 1,300 cases of documented harm since July 2011 in Illinois’ taxpayer-funded group homes and their day programs. The reporters uncovered at least 42 deaths linked to abuse or neglect in group homes or their Tim Doherty day programs and uncovered state records of residents fatally choking on improperly prepared food, Executive Director succumbing to untreated bed sores and languishing in pain from undiagnosed ailments. Norman A. Smith Assoc. Executive Director Second place went to the Brian M. Rosenthal of the Houston Chronicle. Third place was awarded to Mona Yeh, Sonya Green and Yuko Kodama for reports aired on Seattle-Tacoma public radio station 91.3 KBCS, Stephen J. Schaefer Chief Financial Officer and honorable mention went to Belo Cipriani of The Bay Area Reporter. Tracee Battis “PBS NewsHour” anchor Judy Woodruff, who served as a judge, noted that the Chicago Tribune’s Dir. of Housing Development investigation had real consequences in Illinois, where state officials vowed increased transparency and Frank Sciarrotta oversight of taxpayer-funded group homes and legislators are considering laws to force reforms. The Compliance/Property Manager license of one group home provider highlighted in the series was revoked, and residents were moved to other facilities. “The amount of time that went into this project and what the reporters were able to uncover Robbinsville Jacklene Elsowiny just blew me away,” Woodruff said. Social Services Coordinator The three-part series was a finalist for the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in Investigative Reporting as well as the Melinda Sciarrotta winner of the Worth Bingham Prize for Investigative Journalism and an Investigative Reporters and Editors Office Manager Award in 2016. Hamilton Jacklene Elsowiny Berens and Callahan will accept the first-place award and a $5,000 cash prize Nov. 27 at the Walter Social Services Coordinator Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University, where they also will Melinda Sciarrotta deliver a public talk on their work. Their appearance, which is part of the school’s “Must See Mondays” Office Manager lecture series, will be at 7 p.m. in the school’s First Amendment Forum. It is free of charge and open to the Lawrence public, and sign language interpreting and captioning services will be provided. JoAnne Sherry Social Services Coordinator The second place Schneider award and a $1,500 prize were awarded to Rosenthal of the Houston Brianne Devlin Chronicle for an investigation that revealed how Texas officials systematically denied special education Office Manager services to thousands of children. The seven-part series, “Denied14,” found that Texas placed a cap on how Freedom Village at Woodstown many children could receive special education services, saving billions of dollars but denying services to Sammi DeMaris children with disabilities ranging from epilepsy and blindness to autism and attention deficit disorder. Social Services Coordinator Arlene Sims Judges said they were shocked by Rosenthal’s revelations. The state’s actions, they said, showed a Office Manager complete disregard for children with disabilities and their families. Freedom Village at Hopewell Third place and a $500 prize went to Yeh, Green and Kodama for two radio pieces chronicling the Cecilia Funk Social Services Coordinator experiences of one wheelchair user trying to navigate public transportation in Seattle. “Dorian Wants Transit Policy Toward Disabled Persons to Change15,” aired on the Seattle-Tacoma public radio station Jennifer Applegate Office Manager 91.3 KBCS and was supported by the Association of Independents in Radio. Freedom Village at Toms River Cipriani, who is blind, received an honorable mention and a $250 prize for a series, “Seeing in the Laurie Solymosi Social Services Coordinator Dark, published in the Bay Area Reporter. Cipriani writes about the disabled community in the Bay Area, challenging stereotypes about disability ranging from sex to parenting. Joyce Cocco Office Manager Judge Tony Coelho, a former six-term U.S. congressman from California and the primary sponsor of Freedom Village at Westampton the Americans With Disabilities Act, said Cipriani is an important voice and one of a growing number of Dara Johnston people with disabilities who are “writing about the everyday lives of people with disabilities.” Too often, he Social Services Coordinator said, reporting on disabilities is “about us” rather than “by us.” continued page 8 Savanna Green Office Manager A Publication of Project Freedom Inc. / Robbinsville, Hamilton, Lawrence, Woodstown, Hopewell, Toms River & Westampton Visit us on the web at: www.projectfreedom.org Page 2 Event Sponsors National Equity Fund, Inc. V. J. Scozzari & Sons, Inc. Angel Sponsors First Commerce Bank Joseph F. McKernan Jr. Architects & Associates Nottingham Insurance TD Bank Patriot Sponsor Bank of America Freedom Sponsors Dumont & Watson, P.C. Grand Bank NJM Insurance Group Northfield Bank Novogradac & Company LLP PS&S Page 3 “My Two Cents” By Tim Doherty, Executive Director So, as we start the new year ( 2018 ) it has been over two years since the New Jersey Supreme Court took the power of making decisions regarding affordable housing, out of the hands of the COAH Board, and into the respective courts of jurisdiction. So, the question to be asked and answered is has this been a better alternative moving us forward, or has it just delayed and set the affordable housing issue back to the drawing board. My answer to that is that some progress has been made although it has taken a lot of time to get where we are right now. So, a little history is in order to set the stage. Sometime in 2008, the COAH board had set out to establish its third round of rules for affordable housing. This had been done twice before, ergo first round and second round. The third round rules passed however were challenged in the courts and after several years, portions of those rules were rejected, and a portion was upheld. COAH then attempted again to revise their rules and after several false starts, a new set was proposed by the administration, who was under the judicial gun to make a decision. Finally, the COAH Board did vote to turn down those proposed rules, in spite of the courts pressure, which brought the issue before the NJ Supreme Court. That Court decided that COAH, now was defunct and not able to operate, so that all issues of affordable housing would have to be solved within the court of jurisdiction for that town. As a result, most towns filed their declaration of judgement in court, which has given them immunity from a builders lawsuit until their cases could be heard. So, that is what has been going on for the past two years, with towns having to submit their new COAH plans which now are to go to the year 2025. ( 2015 to 2025 – 10 years ). Some towns have combined their efforts to fight these new requirements, while others have worked to settle. Overall, the majority of towns have worked to settle these lawsuits by submitting their new affordable housing plans. As a result, Project Freedom has gotten called into some of these towns for new future projects. One of those new towns is Robbinsville, coincidently where Project Freedom built it’s very first housing project. Another town is Hamilton, again where we also have a presence. Both towns recognize the demand for barrier free housing, and have been supporters of our disabled clients. This certainly is gratifying to know that these two towns think that much of Project Freedom to include us in their new housing plans for the future. This is also a result of having the issue of affordable housing finally being settled within the structure of the court system. In the past, when the Towns would come before COAH, they could easily delay their responses and would take months if not years to address what should have been settled months earlier. And since COAH had no real police power, there was basically nothing that COAH could do to make them comply. Page 4 From Norman’s Desk Readers of my column know that I often use this space to feature articles by others on issues affecting people with disabilities. This recent article from The Nation captures last year’s fight against Medicaid cuts that were “buried” in the attempted repeal of the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”). Love it or hate it, the repeal of Obamacare without careful and honest thought can be devastating to people with disabilities. The following article describes how members of ADAPT led last year’s fight with their bodies. Norman A. Smith, Associate Executive Director - [email protected] Follow me on Twitter @normansmith02 Follow us on Twitter @TheFreedomGuys "Like" us on Facebook.com/ProjectFreedomInc ‘If We Lose Our Health Care, We Will Begin to Die’ Disability activists are at the forefront of direct action against Trump. By Zoë Carpenter, The Nation, January 10, 2018 One morning last June, as Senate Republicans worked feverishly to gut the Affordable Care Act, about 60 people, many of them in wheelchairs, entered the Russell Senate Office Building by separate doors so as not to attract attention from the Capitol Police. They converged on the office of Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell and proceeded to raise hell.