[Jobs] FW: [leadership] Security Concerns Hurt Blind Vendors

[Peter Altschul]

AT FEDERAL BUILDINGS NATIONWIDE

Security Concerns Hurt Blind Vendors

 

By Kari Lydersen

Washington Post Staff Writer

Wednesday, October 24, 2007; Page A17

 

CHICAGO -- For more than 70 years, U.S. law has required that federal
buildings throughout the nation give blind people priority in running
vending operations, gift shops and cafeterias. There is federal funding for
training and start-up costs for blind entrepreneurs.

 

But increased building security since the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the
Sept. 11, 2001, attacks as well as staff cuts at federal buildings have
meant business is down drastically, forcing many blind vendors to call it
quits. About 1,000 vendors -- almost a third of participants -- have left
the federal program in the past 15 years.

    

"People used to come for the outdoor patio, but after 9/11 all those doors
were sealed," said Giovanni Francese, 31, who ran cafeterias in two downtown
Chicago federal buildings. "The numbers of customers kept dropping. It
wasn't that the food wasn't good, but people didn't want to go through
security."

 

In 1991, there were 3,513 blind vendors running 3,337 locations. In the last
fiscal year, there were 2,575 vendors at 3,040 locations, according to the
Department of Education's Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative
Services, which oversees the program. A third of the locations are federal
buildings; the federal program also funds training and setup for blind
vendors in some private and state and county buildings.

 

Blind merchants groups are angry, saying the government should do more to
recruit and train blind vendors and find new sites for them, or contract the
program to private agencies to help.

 

Various facets of the program are already contracted out to private agencies
in Georgia, Idaho, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin, said Ray Hopkins,
who oversees the program for the Education Department.

 

Here, the Chicago Lighthouse, a century-old social service organization for
the blind, is asking the state government to let them administer the blind
vendors program for all of Illinois.

 

Charles Glaser, president of a vendors trade association, said that if the
Chicago Lighthouse gets its way, it would be the first time a large,
existing private organization administered the program.

 

"If this works, we could start a landslide nationwide," said James
Kesteloot, president of the Chicago Lighthouse, where Francese now manages
the cafeteria. The Lighthouse is also well known for its clock factory,
where blind people make custom clocks for government agencies including the
military and the Central Intelligence Agency.

 

Bettye Odem-Davis, chief of the Illinois Bureau of Blind Services, said she
cannot comment on the Lighthouse's specific proposal but said the agency is
open to working with private groups.

 

"I'd be amiss if I said everything runs as smoothly as I would like it to
run," she said. "Anything we can do in regards to marketing and facility
expansion is always warranted."

 

At a conference in San Diego this month, blind vendors discussed contracting
the program to a private agency.

 

"Once we're aware of what the vendors are thinking, we'd see if contracting
out makes sense in the business environment in California," said Tony
Candela, deputy director of the state agency that runs the program.

Meanwhile, government officials say that though increased security is a big
reason for the drop in federal vending facilities for blind merchants,
another major reason is a positive development -- more and better
opportunities available to blind people in the private market.

 

"It's not like the old days when it was more permissible for a blind vendor
to work in a small facility and make a meager living," Candela said. "In
this modern era, people with disabilities are much more empowered."

 

Kesteloot said that if the Chicago Lighthouse is contracted to run the
program, it will look for opportunities in potentially more profitable
private buildings along with maintaining the federal sites.

 

"I think businesses will respond well to a group like the Chicago
Lighthouse," Francese said. "Whereas, if you go to a private business owner
and say you're from the federal government, they're probably going to have a
negative view no matter what you do."

 

-- 

 

Eric Bridges

Director of Advocacy and Governmental Affairs

American Council of the Blind 

Phone: (202) 467-5081

Fax: (202) 467-5085