Local agency, CEO honored as "Game Changers"
Jan Little of Manchester, CEO of Michigan Ability Partners, was honored for her work with those with disabilities, by the Game Changer Awards, sponsored by the Detroit Tigers and Red Wings organizations.
The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on disability, that affords similar protections against discrimination to Americans with disabilities as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which made discrimination based on race, religion, sex, national origin, and other characteristics illegal; and later was also extended to sexual orientation. In addition, unlike the Civil Rights Act, the ADA requires covered employers to provide reasonable accommodations to their employees with disabilities, and imposes accessibility requirements on public accommodations.
The law, which was passed on July 26, 1990, is observed and celebrated each July by those who serve the disabled and differently-abled community. In southeastern Michigan, the Detroit Red Wings and Tigers organizations established the Game Changer Awards to recognize those who make a difference in the community. And Jan Little of Manchester, CEO of Michigan Ability Partners, was among the recipients of a Game Changer Award who were recognized in July during Disability Pride Month.
Jan has worked with Michigan Ability Partners since its inception in 1985 and worked in MAP's vocational and housing programs before becoming CEO. "I always saw myself in the hospitality industry and I also went back to school for occupational therapy, briefly," she explains, "but I knew after starting with this population that this is what I wanted to do. I've had so many opportunities over the years, I've never been bored! It's not even been what I would call a progression — just a lot of branches and opportunities along the way. I guess I've always had this passion; and once I discovered it, over the years it's just grown by leaps and bounds."
Little was the first employee hired by MAP. At that point it was a vocational program, partnered with Manchester Stamping, doing piece work in a pole barn in Bridgewater. "They asked me if I was interested, as I'd been doing a temporary job with the county. I found I really liked this type of work and we got started. We decided quickly that we wanted to move into a wider community-based program, and trained with a variety of local businesses: Ann Arbor News, restaurants, hotels, so my job was to be the liaison between employers and the clients, coaches at the site." About a year after starting, MAP moved to Ann Arbor as its opportunities expanded there.
It was in the process of applying for a grant recently from the Comerica Foundation for MAP that Little's 35-year work was "discovered," and the nomination was made to the Game Changers organization. She was surprised when she learned that she had earned one of the Disability Pride month recognitions.
"No one in this line of work ever does it for the recognition," she admits. "It's really just a part of who you are. Years ago, when I first got started, Craig and I would go out to eat in Ann Arbor and I'd start talking to people about MAP. Or I would see a client, or end up talking to a manager about their hiring needs. Craig would ask me, can't you ever turn it off? And I can't."
Although MAP started out with primarily vocational services for the first 10 years of its existence, it has since expanded into housing (MAP currently owns 44 different affordable housing units that it has built with the help of its client base); plus financial management training; and ensuring young persons with disabilities who are aging out of educational programs at 26, as well as disabled veterans, have access to life-changing services.
"Ultimately, the goal is to get people off the streets and into housing," Little says. "Our goal this year, is to eliminate the homeless veteran population in Washtenaw County. That's a goal you have to say out loud, and put it down on paper, to make sure it can happen. About five years ago I started participating in building community systems to react to homelessness issues throughout the country. To simplify it, you identify who is homeless in your community — by name — so you know each person by name as they enter the system. And then you divert, you connect them to resources right away ... before they're actually homeless.
"This has involved a lot of work with landlords, a lot of work with identifying who are the people who need (our services) the most — the chronically homeless and those with severe disabilities, rise to the top. We help determine what kind of services they need to stay in a home. We could find them a place and they would lose it. There are payment problems and behavior issues that tie into these concerns, and we get trained in the interventions needed to help provide the right supports to keep people housed. At this point, we are very close to having reduced our numbers on our by-name list, to the point that we have enough resources in the community to help house the people on the list. It doesn't mean you'll truly end homelessness — people go in and out of that in every community — but you'll be at 'functional zero'."
Michigan Ability Partners has transitional housing available for veterans, where they can go right from the VA Hospital rather than via a shelter or becoming short-term homeless. "We offer support services and short-term vouchers. We work with landlords and offer our support until they can take over on their own," Little explains.
The eviction moratorium has proved "interesting" over the past year of the pandemic from both the landlord and the provider side of the picture. It has been a double-edged with more people staying put, leaving fewer units available to put people into housing. But on the other hand, getting resources to clients and to landlords has helped, as well.
The work is hard, and often exhausting. Operating on a shoestring budget, being in the thick of things on a daily basis, and dealing with crucial issues with MAP's 30+ staff and 1,500 clients on a moments' notice, is not easy.
"But I think when you help someone and see them become the best they can be — whether it's giving them their first set of keys or an opportunity to start earning a paycheck, or setting goals and saving for something they didn't ever envision themselves having ... if that doesn't give you a spark to keep going, I don't know what will," Little says.
That said, she is starting to look at taking time to set the stage to wind down and transition into a little less intense work/life balance. "I'd love to do some consulting and stay in this work in some way," she muses. "I've spent a lot of years grant writing, and I also love the real estate side of this and maybe I will get my real estate license. Something with a little less pressure, less time consuming."
And yet, she still sees new needs everywhere she looks. "The best thing about working for a non-profit, is if you see a need in the community, you can find someone to help you fund it and help that need," she says. "And that's one of the things I'm good at. Our staff is just as passionate and we have a super team."
So don't blink. MAP, with Jan Little at the helm, will continue to change the game for people with disabilities in Washtenaw County and the surrounding areas. For more information on the work done by Little and her staff at Michigan Ability Partners, visit MAPagency.org.
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