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Monthly Update

Jan 19, 2024

The January Update

Happy New Year, friends of Easy Does It,

We’re excited to start another year helping Berkeley Seniors and People with Disabilities to live independently in their homes. The year 2023 was filled with changes and improvements to how our agency operates and engages with our community. It’s our goal to continue these improvements in this New Year of 2024. We have important announcements regarding your completion of service agreement e-signatures, the distribution of our quarterly survey, multiple new events to announce for January, resource guides for our clients, and the opening of another waitlist with Satellite Affordable Housing Associates.

Our Resolutions for 2024

Infographic Reading, Happy New Year. Wishing you all the best in 2024. A photo of San Francisco's 2023 Fireworks show appears in the background.

As we enter another year of working to provide our clients with affordable emergency services, which empower them to live independently, it feels like the right time to set more goals for EDI. Like in 2023, we’ll continue to grow and improve the quality of our services so that more people can take advantage of our repair, transportation, and attendant care programs.

We will continue to work towards fully modernizing our communications and operations. The Website, Service Agreement App, and updates to our IT Infrastructure are some of the steps which we are implementing to ensure that EDI is ready to serve our next clients, no matter how they wish to get in touch with us. We’ll continue to seek out more community events to reach new clients and to find innovative, cost-effective ways to reach them online.

We’ll continue to provide our Team members with the resources they need to succeed in their staff positions. We will continue to provide comprehensive staff training so they’re ready to take on any problem presented by our clients. EDI will also continue to provide good wages and benefits so that our staff is fairly compensated for their hard work. We look forward to continuing to challenge ourselves and to growing as a Team to provide our clients with the emergency services that they need to live as they choose.

Quarterly Client Satisfaction Survey

A closeup of the bottom right of our quarterly survey envelopes. With our logo mark printed on the envelope.

It’s time for us to solicit your feedback regarding the quality of EDI’s emergency services again. Our quarterly survey is invaluable in gauging how well we serve the community. Your feedback is always reviewed by our leadership team, and should you wish to have us follow up with you regarding your comments and concerns, we’re happy to do so. If you’d like to submit your responses online, watch for another message from us with the survey link. If you prefer to send it in the mail, a paper copy of the survey is also being distributed. As always, you have the option to remain anonymous. Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback so that we can continue to improve our service quality.

Take the Survey

Service Agreement E-Signatures

An iphone mockup with a rendering of our Service Agreements App on the display.

An important clarification regarding how we collect E-Signatures. At the time of service, the EDI Team Member you interact with will have a document for you to sign at the end of your Service Call. The purpose of this document is to prove to our funders that we have provided you with professional and quality service. But signing up on our phones isn’t the only required step to finalize the Survey document; you will also be asked to provide us with your e-mail address so that our software can send you a link to verify your signed response.

You’ll receive a one-time message. You will need to click the link in the message to verify that you signed the document and to download a copy for your records. Providing your e-mail address in this contract does not enroll you in our mailing lists or any EDI Communications other than the message prompting you to verify your response. Clicking this link is a vital step in completing a Service Agreement, and we thank you for taking the time to do so.

We’ll be at CRIL in Hayward on Ed Roberts Day

Infographic Reading  "Thank You to everyone who supported us on Giving Tuesday." In the background, Rick and Drewski pose for a photo in our repair workshop.

We’re hitting the ground running on the Outreach Front in 2024. In honor of Ed Robert’s Day, the Community Resources for Independent Living, which has offices in Hayward, Fremont, and Livermore, is hosting a celebration on January 23, and they will be providing their clients with free food and activities. We’ll be there to join them in honoring Ed Robert’s legacy and to provide their clients with complimentary tune-ups to their power chairs and other mobility devices by Levan Talakhadze, our Wheelchair Repair Service Manager.

We’ll be at Oakland Chinatown’s Lunar New Year Bazaar

Repair Tech Rick and Board Member Larry pose for a photo in front of Easy Does It's Outreach Booth at the Ecology Center's Farmers Market.

Shortly after Ed Robert’s Day, Easy Does It will be tabling at the Oakland Chinatown Chamber of Commerce’s Lunar New Year Bazaar. The 32nd Annual Lunar New Year Bazaar will take place January 27-28, 2024, highlighting Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese and other cultural traditions and art forms connected to the traditional Lunar New Year holiday. We’ll be there both days of the celebration to ring in the Year Of The Dragon, to distribute our free merch and our new Mandarin Chinese Literature on EDI ‘s emergency services, and to connect with local residents who can benefit from our new Oakland Wheelchair Repair Program and Free Wheelchair Roadside Assistance.

Guest Writers and Resource Guides

We’re also very excited to be working with two Guest Writers for our website’s news section. Hannah Simpson and Claire Wentz have been kind enough to start contributing comprehensive resource guides to our website. Hannah is a mother with a disability; Claire is a caregiver; they both have backgrounds rooted in independent living, and their expertise has already resulted in multiple well-researched pieces that we’re sure our community will benefit from. The first piece, “Strategic Guide for Parents with Disabilities to Launch and Succeed in Small Business,” was well received by the many people who engaged with it online. We look forward to continuing to work with them to develop content from which our community can benefit.

Personal Emergency Preparedness Courses from The CIL

The Center for Independent Living and the Oakland Fire Department’s CORE Team is inviting you to a “Personal Emergency Preparedness” course on Thursday, January 25th at 3:30 p.m. This course is being held in-person at the Ed Roberts Campus at 3075 Adeline Street, Berkeley, CA, and via Zoom. If you would like to join the event, please register by clicking here. To join via Zoom, please use this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82608325274 or click here.

Emergency Preparedness and Resiliency for Alameda County from The CIL

The Center for Independent Living’s Emergency Preparedness and Resilience Program Team is collaborating with the World Institute on Disability (WID) to understand people with disabilities emergency preparedness, their experiences during emergencies and disasters, and what county or community resources they access or expect to access. We aim to understand better the experiences, needs, and challenges of people with disabilities and how county and community resources can better respond and build capacity based on feedback.

We will be holding a series of focus groups and community listening sessions in the near future, which you will have the opportunity to sign up for at the end of this survey. The survey may take you 5-15 minutes to complete. Thank you for your time and input into this important future community resource! Please circulate this survey far and wide among your family, friends, networks, and communities you are a part of.

Take Emergency Preparedness Survey

Casa Montegro Waitlist is Open

The waiting list for studio and 1-bedroom units at Casa Montego opens on January 17, 2024, at 9:00 AM. Applications will be available to submit online. Please visit www.sahahomes.org/apply for their address and more information. Online applications must be submitted by 5:00 PM on January 24, 2024. Paper applications will also be available to pick up at the property at the following times:

  • Thursday, January 18, 2024, 9 am - 12 noon
  • Monday, January 22, 2024, 9 am - 12 noon
  • Tuesday, January 23, 2024, 1 pm - 4 pm

Paper applications will also be available online to print. Paper applications must be mailed to the address listed on the application. Paper applications must be postmarked by January 24, 2024, and received by the manager's office by 5:00 PM on January 31, 2024.

A lottery will be conducted for all applications received by the deadline. The top 200 applications will be placed on the waiting list for consideration. The 24-hour support phone line will open on January 17, 2024, at 9:00 AM and close on January 24, 2024, at 5:00 PM. Please call the number below for assistance. Persons with disabilities can request reasonable accommodations to participate in the application process. If you need a reasonable accommodation, please email Montego-Acalanes@sahahomes.org.

That’s all the news that we have for you in January. We wish you all the best in the New Year. EDI will continue to strive to build upon all our accomplishments in 2023 and look forward to providing you with professional and quality care so that you may live independently in your home. Until next month, take it easy.

Join our Mailing List

We regularly send out monthly updates and occasional announcements to subscribers of our mailing list. Those who choose to subscribe to SMS can receive emergency updates regarding natural disasters and the status of our services during them.