ROY PAYAN champions Disability Rights through his advocacy work in education, workforce, and housing. He earned a double major from Cal State Los Angeles in Rehabilitation Services and Public Policy (to better comprehend the mannerisms, traits and characteristics of a wide spectrum of disabilities), in an effort to formulate policies to bring attention to the saliency of implementing better policies that impact persons with disabilities of any kind. Mr. Payan also earned his Masters from the USC Price School of Public Policy.

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As VP of the NFB affiliate Poder Y Movimiento Latino, Roy has been instrumental in forcing several shelters throughout the state to accept homeless, blind DACA students into their shelters. Roy also encourages Indigenous and Hispanic adults to begin or return to school to better their lives. He brought a lawsuit against the Los Angeles City College District Board to enforce compliance with Section 504 and won that fight after seven long years.  

 

Simultaneously, as Vice President of Northeast Los Angeles - Save Our Undeveloped Lands (NELA SOUL he has worked to preserve open land spaces and wildlife corridors for the purpose of Land back Repatriation to indigenous nations.

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More recently, Roy has worked on a program analysis of the county’s Los Angeles Homeless Shelter Authority to review program misuse and policy failures to accept persons with disabilities into the homeless system simply for being disabled.

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Roy has won several national awards for his advocacy on behalf of persons with disabilities that include the California Association of Post Secondary Education in Disabilities (CAPED) President’s Award, The Justin Shapel Award from RespectAbility.org and recognition by the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy for Advocacy of  Disability Rights on the 32nd anniversary of the signing of the ADA. 

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He completed a Fellowship at RespectAbility.org in Public Policy where he reviewed disability policies at the federal, state, county and city levels and informed elected and civic officials on how to improve education, workforce and housing policies.

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Roy plans to acquire the necessary skills in housing development to create Community Land Trust to build truly affordable housing for purchase by persons with disabilities to begin to close the generational wealth gap for this demographic. Roy came to the realization that there is a shortage of affordable housing for this under represented group throughout the US. He aspires to implement housing developments specifically for ownership by persons with disabilities throughout the nation to begin to attenuate these statistics and begin to ameliorate the lives of persons with disabilities in every state.

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Roy is a returning Fox Fellow and lives in Los Angeles.