DC Disability: Housing vs. Choice?

Over the past couple of years, I’ve been part of a working group, chaired by DDS/DDA deputy director Winslow Woodland, that has been examining different options and partnerships to make housing more available, accessible and affordable for people with disabilities in DC.  The efforts this group is undertaking go well beyond DDA-funded residential supports for people who qualify for its services, but DDS has hoped that this group could help identify housing alternatives to enable it to move away from paying rent for people under the IDD waiver (see DC disability-related organizations and terminology).  DC is indeed unusual in having its disability support agency pay rental costs – most states rely on housing vouchers or other programs, separate from disability services - but in this city where so many are priced out of the rental market and the waitlist for housing vouchers can be decades long, I admit to being unsure if it’s desirable for DDS to extricate itself from paying housing costs for those it supports.  Lately, though, I’ve realized there’s another side to this coin that could complicate the future direction of advocacy in DC.

DDS/DDA has always sought to place new recipients of residential supports into vacant slots in existing apartments for which it already is paying rent.  Lately though, as the DC budget faces increasing constraints, DDA is taking a harder line on enforcement.  If you’ve tuned in to recent DDS Friday forums (Power Points and recordings), particularly this past June, you will have heard DDS officials explaining to some of DC’s newer provider agencies why they are not receiving referrals for provision of residential services.  Simply put, this is because existing providers in DC are the ones that already have available vacancies, and given budget realities, the DDS position is that it can’t incur new rental costs from a new agency when there are vacancies in paid-up apartments elsewhere. 

Why this may matter comes down to whether people are happy with the existing cast of DC provider agencies or believe that there is a need for new blood and greater choice. When advocates and families were celebrating success in having pushed through the DDERAA bill (see DC disability-related organizations and terminology) in 2022, we expected that new agencies with more cutting-edge knowledge of autism and other developmental disabilities would enter the field alongside more established, longtime DC residential providers whose expertise was shaped by DDS’ pre-2022 focus solely on people with intellectual disabilities.  What’s now becoming evident, though, is that newer providers are having trouble getting referrals as long as there is a vacancy backlog with existing providers – 60 vacancies as of June, according to DDS director Andy Reese.

This is a dilemma, and I don’t have an automatic solution to propose.  But if DDS support for housing is standing in the way of new providers entering DC, that does provide food for thought and is going to require careful consideration as we move forward to create a more inclusive service system in DC while the budget noose keeps tightening.

Do you have any thoughts on this?  If so, please enter your comments below!

Carol Grigsby is a dedicated advocate (she/her/hers) focused on advancing rights and increasing opportunities for people with developmental disabilities in Washington, DC.  I am a former member and chair of the DC Developmental Disabilities Council and serve on several committees and groups chaired by DC’s Department on Disability Services.  In addition to advocating for full inclusion of people with disabilities in our local community, I strongly support statehood for DC, where I have lived since 1978, since without that no DC resident, disabled or non-disabled, will ever be fully empowered. Opinions in this blog are my own.