Security Concerns Hurt Blind Vendors
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- Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2007 21:25:37 -0400
The Washington Post
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Security Concerns Hurt Blind Vendors
By Kari Lydersen Staff Writer
AT FEDERAL BUILDINGS NATIONWIDE
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.
Caption: Chicagoan Giovanni Francese dropped out of a struggling federal
program that helps blind people run cafeterias in federal buildings. (By Kari
Lydersen -- The Washington Post)
"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."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/23/AR2007102302169.html
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