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Well, it looks like the new head of HUD heard that NPA doesn't like to be ignored," shouted Inez Killingsworth, a long-time neighborhood leader from Cleveland, Ohio, referring to Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Mel Martinez.

"So as soon as he took office last month, he sent us a letter thanking us for all our hard work and asking if we would meet with him as soon as possible. Funny, we usually have to fight for a meeting like this, but maybe he heard about the fun we had at Andrew Cuomo's house a few years back. The new Secretary has agreed to a meeting, but that meeting hasn't happened yet, and you know we don't let anybody off the hook until we get what we want."

Local groups have held more than 40 local, regional, and national meetings with the Department of Housing and Urban Development over the last year, resulting in dozens of wins in NPA neighborhoods.

During the National People's Action's 30th annual conference the FHA workshop panel included neighborhood leaders like Linda Lambert and Theresa Welch from Chicago and Carolyn Stanley from Syracuse who announced victories on HUD abandoned building issues that had been plaguing their neighborhoods for years.

Connie Hill from Chicago and Grant Ervin from Pittsburgh shared their strategies for cleaning up non-HUD abandoned buildings, and Killingsworth emphasized that the power of NPA, the commitment of NPA leaders to work together to solve these issues, and how consistent follow-through leads to success.

NPA groups preparing for a meeting with Martinez will make sure that neighborhoods continue to improve throughout the Bush administration.