2009's CCHOAA WINNER

2009's winner was Linda Rubens, RN Vice Chair, Florida Statewide Advocacy Council.

As the Executive Director of Mt Carmel Gardens, an Independent Living center in Jacksonville, she has also served as Chairman and now Vice Chair of the Florida Statewide Advocacy Council in Tallahassee.

Appointed by Governor Crist, Linda has repeatedly demonstrated leadership and awareness of issues related to Florida’s seniors in accordance with the Council’s mandate to be Guardians of the Public Trust, and safeguard and oversee the quality of public services provided to Florida’s citizens.

Using her nursing credentials, she also represents and protects the most frail of Florida’s elderly persons residing in nursing homes, and investigates health and safety violations through Operation Spot Check. A member of the national American Association of Homes and Services for the Aged, she is committed to housing which is inclusive of elderly and non-elderly residents for the benefit of all. She is a leader in expansion of assisted living services for not only Mt. Carmel residents but has also developed plans to build affordable HUD-subsidized housing.

Linda knows she needs patience and persistence to make that vision reality. She understands and works with numerous providers and Jacksonville community and statewide leaders to create linkages, new programs and opportunities. She walks the hallways of Tallahassee and Washington DC to generate further support for affordable housing and numerous public-private partnerships that will enhance the lives of the growing numbers of seniors in Florida, today and tomorrow.

Linda Rubens, like our awardee Norma Lemberg from Coral Gables last year, is an energizer bunny! She understands how to launch new services, gain community and/or legislative consensus and support and manage successful programs. She has many ideas for the future; and the State of Florida is the better for her energy and passion!

She exemplifies C. Colburn Hardy's view that hopefully the projects in which she is involved will…. “make the world a better place in which to work, to live, to love and to have our being.”

Linda Rubens indeed makes a difference!