The Death of the DeafBlind Program

For the inauguration of our blog page, we share a letter written by the former LightHouse DeafBlind Program Manager to LightHouse’s Board of Directors and executive leadership on October 5, 2024. Enjoy!

A tombstone that depicts R.I.P. NDBEDP The National Deaf-Blind Equipment Distribution Program

Dear LightHouse leaders,

This farewell letter is my last communication with leadership as a now-former Manager of the DeafBlind Program. I wish I could write a positive message reflecting on my years with LightHouse and expressing sincere gratitude for the opportunity to work for the organization over the decades. But I cannot—I must speak truth to power so that the same does not happen to others.

I had the honor of being a part of the LightHouse family since September 2001. Up until the elimination of my position on September 30, 2024, I served LightHouse longer than the combined number of years of each of the current Executive Leadership Team (ELT). I witnessed many changes through the years, and I persisted in serving LightHouse clients despite both what LightHouse went through and difficult personal circumstances. To my knowledge, no other DeafBlind Specialist served longer than ten years, because I had a rock-solid commitment to LightHouse's mission and its clients for as long as possible.

I leave with the impression that the current ELT is not genuinely committed to the organization's mission. Instead, it is abundantly clear that the ELT is more interested in consolidating and abusing power. That is not only an affront to the vision of LightHouse's founders but also inconsistent with its core values, which include compassion, empowerment, and inclusion.

You do not empower people by intimidating them into silence, denying them fair opportunities for career advancement, or retaliating against them for suggesting solutions that lift others. Nor is it an act of compassion when you callously disregard the reality of discrimination disabled people face in the job market when you suddenly cut off their sources of independence and even survival, failing to give them opportunities to do right to whatever you believed they did wrong. Finally, inclusion is not about excluding certain groups of people whose opinions you disdain or abilities you deem incompatible with your vision of an inclusive workplace.

I am not a perfect person. We all have our strengths and weaknesses, but it is up to each of us to decide whether to work on improving our weak spots. A person who strives to learn from mistakes and make an effort to do right to a past wrong does not consistently deny their mistakes or refuse to accept inconvenient truths.

Yet, after over two decades of dedication to LightHouse, the ELT not only failed to recognize my years of service, but it coldly ended the DeafBlind Program. Every year, awards are bestowed on an individual employee in recognition of excellence, one of the other LightHouse values, and I was never the recipient of such an award. Instead, I was rewarded with harassment and intimidation by certain individuals in positions of power. When I protested by speaking up on my behalf and for those unable to speak up themselves effectively, I was gaslit into silence.

I was the only salaried Deaf worker at LightHouse during my entire career. There was a Deaf janitor at one point, and another Deaf person assisted with the iCanConnect program on a very limited basis until 2019. Right now, only one DeafBlind person remains in the entire organization.

I grew up practicing Buddhism, which heavily shaped my values and allowed me to serve others even in times of intense difficulty. My suggestions for improving services to a community I knew well even before joining LightHouse were influenced by the value of compassion embodied in Buddhist practice, but they were almost always met with disinterest and indifference. To give the illusion that leadership truly cared, many promises of improving services were made that never materialized.

All of this culminated in a July 1, 2024 decision by the leadership to eliminate my position. About two months before that, you created a new position whose responsibilities overlapped with the DeafBlind Program Manager job I occupied. To make sure I could not apply or be internally transferred, another hearing worker who only joined LightHouse in 2020 was transferred out of a program where their expertise and experience were an appropriate match.

In addition to eliminating my position, my real chance at career advancement was dashed by leadership's mere suggestion of applying to other open positions serving blind people, a group I seldom worked with. Nevertheless, after several weeks of hesitation because those positions didn't seem the right fit for me, I applied for an open Orientation and Mobility instructor position, but was told someone else from outside of LightHouse had already taken it, even though internal applicants are usually prioritized; and when I applied for another available position, I did not receive an interview, before that job posting was pulled from the website a month later and I was advised they are not processing any application at the moment. In fact, I met the new Orientation and Mobility instructor taking my place, and she told me she did not have any experience working with DeafBlind people and will need to utilize a sign language interpreter. Discriminatory treatment of LightHouse job applicants or workers is nothing new to me under your leadership.

While I believe I was unfairly laid off, it is the DeafBlind community that will be most negatively impacted by the elimination of my position. This community gave me a sense of purpose by enhancing its members' lives. But it breaks my heart to think that a program that defined the community's relationship with LightHouse for decades came to a sudden end. Worse, this historically underserved group wasn't even allowed to weigh in on the future of the Program, which is inconsistent with the stated values of disability justice and inclusion. This unilateral move also suggests something larger about the current leadership: being incapable of empathy and devoid of compassion.

In conclusion, I leave LightHouse with the honor and privilege of decades of service that positively touched other lives and made me a better person. I do not have a problem with LightHouse, an organization I still love, and the memories of my time there will forever be cherished, but I have a big problem with the people who now run it. I hope and pray that LightHouse endures for decades to come; but right now, LightHouse is in crisis.

Sincerely,

Former DeafBlind Program Manager