What 2025 Revealed -- and How 2026 Will Be Different

Andrew Moore
6 days ago
5 min read

Image Description: A split-panel illustrated graphic contrasting 2025 and 2026. On the left, labeled “Reflecting on 2025,” DeafBlind and blind protesters stand in front of the LightHouse for the Blind building holding signs reading “Accountability Now” and “No Takeover.” Media logos (San Francisco Chronicle, SF Standard, KTVU FOX 2) and complaint documents appear, along with a calendar marked “2025,” conveying sustained public advocacy and scrutiny. On the right, labeled “Moving Forward in 2026,” the tone is brighter. Stacked public records with checkmarks, a gavel, and a government building symbolize accountability and regulatory action. A raised fist represents endurance and collective resolve. Text reads “Holding Leaders Accountable” and “Stay Strong. Stay Engaged,” emphasizing continued oversight and persistence into 2026.

The Decertify LightHouse Now (DLN) Campaign reflects on 2025 as it begins 2026. This post places key developments from the past year on the record and explains what those events revealed about leadership, accountability, and time. It also clarifies how DLN is moving forward—based not on assumptions, but on what 2025 made unmistakably clear.

Looking Back: What Took Place in 2025

In 2025, our Campaign and supporters engaged in sustained public advocacy challenging leadership and governance failures at LightHouse for the Blind & Visually Impaired. That year included:

Three public protests explicitly naming senior leadership, including Interim CEO Brandon Cox and Board Chair Jennison Asuncion
Extensive media coverage by the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Standard, and KTVU FOX 2
Formal and informal complaints filed with regulators, including the California Attorney General and the Federal Communications Commission
Organized community resistance to a proposed takeover by Lighthouse Guild, which the LightHouse board ultimately voted down

As 2026 began, there had been no change at the top of LightHouse’s leadership—nor any indication that the board intended to exercise independent corrective authority, despite its legal duties under the California Corporations Code.

DLN and NCADB: A Necessary Evolution of Roles

DLN originally emerged in close coordination with the Northern California Association of the DeafBlind (NCADB), an organization with deep Bay Area roots and a longstanding role as a social and community organization for DeafBlind residents.Over the course of 2025, leadership transitions and broader shifts within the community clarified that the roles served by NCADB and DLN were diverging in healthy and necessary ways. NCADB’s historic strength lies in fostering connection, mutual support, and community life. DLN’s work evolved toward sustained accountability and documentation.Allowing NCADB to remain focused on its historic social mission—without being pulled into the demands of a public accountability campaign—serves the community. DLN’s effectiveness, in turn, depends on independence, focus, and structural clarity. That evolution will continue in 2026.

What 2025 Taught Us About Accountability

One of the clearest lessons of 2025 was the disconnect between legal mandates and enforcement timelines. DLN documented that NCADB submitted informal complaints on behalf of DeafBlind consumers, and that responses from LightHouse were only learned after the federal government shutdown ended. From the submission of community petitions to the FCC in early 2025 through the filing of individual consumer complaints, no timely regulatory action followed.Congress has made clear that equal access to communications cannot wait. DeafBlind consumers cannot pause employment, healthcare, education, or daily life while complaints move through informal notice, delayed responses, and discretionary enforcement. What 2025 revealed is that regulatory delay does not preserve the status quo—it actively displaces consumers. In the absence of timely enforcement, DeafBlind individuals were forced to seek help elsewhere to meet critical access needs. Delayed enforcement often functions as denied access.

When Nothing Changes: Governance Capture and Structural Failure

As 2026 begins, the issue is no longer whether LightHouse leadership has changed—it is why it has not. The conditions that produced harm in the first place remain intact, despite sustained scrutiny.Despite that scrutiny, credible concerns about governance persist. The LightHouse board has shown no visible willingness to exercise independent oversight or meaningfully address failures tied to executive leadership. Whether through inaction, deference, or structural dependency, the board continues to function as an extension of executive control rather than a check on it.Regulatory inaction has compounded this failure. The iCanConnect program’s patchwork design continues to allow a single entity—LightHouse—to function as the exclusive provider in California, even amid persistent access failures. When enforcement is slow and alternatives are structurally limited, consumers are left without meaningful choice. In practice, monopoly provision combined with regulatory delay operates as denial of access.

The “Wait-Them-Out” Assumption and Why It Fails

Institutions facing accountability efforts often rely on the assumption that communities will eventually grow tired, quiet, or divided. This “wait-them-out” strategy explains why organizations may tolerate reputational damage while avoiding reform.But 2025 demonstrated that reduced visibility does not mean reduced impact. Silence does not mean disappearance. It often means consolidation—of records and complaints to sustain accountability efforts. Last year, therefore, taught us that institutional reform is an ongoing campaign by embracing a new approach that builds upon the previous year’s work.

2026: DLN’s Objectives

In 2026, DLN’s focus shifts as follows:

Sustained leadership accountability, explicitly calling out Brandon Cox, Jennison Asuncion, and Diane McCown as the nonprofit officers entrusted with the assets and governance of LightHouse
Preserving and expanding the public record
Demanding regulatory and certification consequences where voluntary reform has failed – and holding regulators themselves accountable through legislative bodies• Maintaining readiness to escalate when conditions warrant

Institutions do not change because time passes. They change when community campaigns endure. With that in mind, DLN’s work continues through 2026, until and unless either reform occurs or real regulatory consequences are materialized in compliance with Congressional intent.

A Call to the Community

DLN’s work has never depended on constant visibility—it depends on shared clarity. We urge the blind and DeafBlind community, allies, and advocates not to internalize the assumption that delay means defeat or that silence means the work is over.Institutions rely on the belief that communities will wait themselves out. We ask the community to reject that premise. Accountability is cumulative, and endurance—not exhaustion—is what ultimately forces change.Stay engaged. Stay critical. Do not mistake time passing for justice being done.