NEOCH Annual Meeting

Congratulations to Chandra and Stowe NEOCH Award Winners

 

The Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless held its annual meeting on March 15, 2012.  We introduced our 2011 Annual Report which is available on our website here.  We also gave out awards and had a nice meal provided by the Board.   Subodh Chandra was recognized as the Advocate of the Year for all his work protecting the rights of homeless to vote in person.  The Board recognized Brent Stowe from Lakewood as the Volunteer of the Year for 2011 for his help in restarting the street newspaper locally.  Toni Johnson (pictured above), a long time friend of NEOCH, and current staff of the Veterans Administration gave a keynote address about all the changes taking place to end homelessness among veterans.  She talked about the unmet need of the families of veterans locally and nationally. 

Subodh Chandra was pulled away from the event for an emergency, but had done so much work over the last four years in representing the interests of homeless people against the State of Ohio's attempts to limit access to the ballot box.  He won a retraining order in 2006 and 2008 election to assure that ballots would be counted in a consistent manner throughout the State.  He did a great deal of work on a settlement signed in 2010 that will govern the 2012 Presidential election.  Chandra has always been supportive of uncomplicated access to voting in the United States as the cradle of democracy.

Brent Stowe (pictured on the right) works at American Greetings and is the man behind the Street Chronicle.  He is a great graphic designer and we could not do the paper without his help.  He has volunteered his time to dramatically improve the layout of the paper.  He quietly gets the job done quickly and efficiently.  Stowe graduated from Kent State University and has a background in graphics and artwork.  

The Board voted officers for the next year to include Marcia Bufford as President, Roy Love as Vice President, Michelle Russell as Treasurer, and Brenda Gray as Secretary.  We looked at the main programs that the Coalition worked on in 2011.  Marcia Bufford highlighted some of the goals the Coalition is working on for 2012 and beyond.  

Brian

Posts reflect the opinions of those signing the entry.