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ADAPT’s history with the Department of Housing and Urban Development
goes back about fifteen years when ADAPT sued to get HUD to enforce accessibility in housing.
Over the last few years however, ADAPT has been increasingly active in pressing HUD for
changes necessary to bring people with disabilities into the American community.
In looking back at HUD’s responsibility to provide accessible, affordable
and integrated housing to Americans that have been forced out of the housing mainstream;
one thing stands out: HUD will not honor their promises without consistent pressure.
Here are some recent ADAPT actions necessary to keep people with disabilities on the agenda of HUD:
May 2001: ADAPT took the campaign for REAL CHOICE in long-term care and
Medicaid reform to HUD by striking up a dialogue with Secretary Martinez.
July 2004: On the west coast, ADAPT demanded the Seattle Washington Regional HUD
office work with ADAPT to ensure that HUD’s housing vouchers would be
available to people transitioning out of nursing homes.
September 2005: Sectary Alphonso Jackson refused to meet with hundreds of
ADAPT activists surrounding the massive HUD office in Washington DC.
ADAPT engineered second smaller group of about 60 activists to visit
the Secretary’s home in Alexandria Virginia.
“We were chanting: who do you want?
– Jackson;
when do you want him?
– Now,” said Mark Johnson an organizer from Atlanta.
“and the next thing you know, he is standing right there.”
March 2006: ADAPT visited the regional HUD office in Nashville demanding
the department make housing vouchers available to get people out of Nursing Homes.
May 2007: Secretary Alfonso Jackson made a point of coming to ADAPT.
He spoke to the activists about his personal commitment and committed to
finding vouchers that had been set aside for people with disabilities, but not tracked by HUD.
ONE YEAR AGO: Speaking to the assembled ADAPT activists in Chicago Illinois,
HUD failed to live up to the promise to deliver recovered housing subsidies.