Community Activist Sue Hodges

by Sheila D'Amico

To call Sue Hodges an activist is like saying the late Isaac Asimov was a science-fiction writer. It doesn't begin to describe the work of this woman of many interests. Sue, who has lived in the lower Maxwell Park area since 1988, is involved with her Neighborhood Crime Prevention Council. She says, "We've worked hard to get drug dealers out. In fact, the former occupant of my house was a drug dealer, and when I first moved in, people would come to the house looking to buy. The neighborhood is real different now, and I like seeing people with children moving in."

But Sue is probably more well known through her work for people with disabilities. Recently, Assemblywoman Dion Aroner honored her as Woman of the Year for the 14th Assembly District. "I'm particularly proud of receiving the award in the thirteenth year it was given," Sue laughs, "because, as you know, there are 13 lunar cycles in a year." She is proud, too, of her work on and for Alameda County's Public Authority for In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS), which she serves as a member of the Advisory Committee.

IHSS is a program that provides home-care workers for the elderly or persons with disabilities. It has been a program of the state since the early seventies. But in 1993, the legislature authorized counties that wished to do so to form a Public Authority to deliver the in-home supportive services.

Sue was in on that formation. "Among the senior community and the disability community, everyone agreed that reform in the provision of services needed to occur, so a Reorganization Working Group recommended to the Board of Supervisors that Alameda have a Public Authority. We are a flagship community. Now there are five other counties that are starting or already have a Public Authority.

"The Public Authority establishes a Registry of home-care workers and minimally screens the workers. IHSS recipients, who are the consumers, have a right to hire and fire their worker and to train the worker for their needs. An Enhanced Hiring Assistant can aid consumers to do that hiring. This is helpful," Sue adds, "to those consumers who may never have hired or supervised anyone before."

Sue is especially excited about a $350,000 Robert Wood Johnson grant to the Public Authority for the Rapid Response Emergency Worker Replacement Program, which begins in July. The program dispatches an emergency worker to the home of an IHSS recipient if a scheduled worker cancels or does not show up. Sue has set as one of her next tasks finding ongoing funding for this program.

But that's not her only goal. Future plans include a program responsive to needs of people on a continuum. "In 1997," she says, "I developed double pneumonia. Never having had it before, I didn't quite know how bad it would be. The hospital wanted me to go to a skilled-nursing facility, but I wanted to retain independent status." Luckily, Sue could count on her dependable worker, Felomina Elisan, who has been with her since 1996. But because of the pneumonia, she needed a higher level of care and someone to direct her worker. That's what she is trying to establish with the Continuum of Care: when an IHSS recipient's situation changes, the care can change.

And that's not all she does. Sue also chairs Oakland's Mayor's Commission on Persons with Disabilities. Among other things, the Commission worked with Ceda Floyd on getting CouncilAgendas accessible to persons with vision disabilities through voice mail at 238-2386. Sue wants Metro readers to know there are vacancies on the commission. "We're looking for broader representation, folks who can bring in organizational and agency representation." Issues she is working on include curb ramps, pedestrian-audible traffic signals, and the ADA Transition Plan.

She's also on the Board of Directors of United Seniors of Oakland & Alameda County and has been working with them for more than ten years, "even before I became a senior. I've been working on Paratransit service and doing advocacy work with AC Transit on fixed routes. I was also appointed by Mary King and Elihu Harris as Alameda representative to the MTC Elderly and Disabled Advisory Committee. I'm a member of the Alameda County Transportation Authority Expenditure Plan Development Committee for Reauthorization of Measure B, too, and past Chair of both the East Bay Paratransit Consortium Service Review Advisory Committee and the BART Accessibility Task Force & AC Transit Accessibility Advisory Committee."

Sue's golden retriever, Felix, assists her by opening and closing doors, bringing laundry to the washer, and retrieving dropped objects. Sue says for a Service Dog one "must have high expectations." There's no doubt that Sue has high expectations for herself, too, as shown through her extensive contributions to the community.