The legislative season is wrapping up in the state of Washington, and Stacy Dym, executive director of the Arc of Washington State, feels hopeful that real change and concrete help is on the way to address the IDD housing crisis in our state.

“This legislative session the push is to make sure we have more models of housing that will meet more needs,” Dym said in a recent interview. “As of now we have $25 million in the Capital Budget, five times more than we’ve ever had to build appropriate housing across the state.”

Toward a person-centered housing solution

The need for more funding is clear … a recent ECONorthwest legislative study looked at the current housing crisis for people with disabilities across the state. “Thirty-seven thousand people with developmental disabilities are in unstable housing situations, and the crisis is real,” Dym explained. “And we’ve had a lack of investment in this state in housing that meets the needs of this significant portion on our population.”

“This is nothing new,” she continued. “This has been occurring since the ‘80s when the state was deinstitutionalizing the DD population and moving them into group homes. We need to think carefully about how we can work with the state to support a system that’s person-centered and meets the unique needs of individual folks,” she said.

“Group homes can be the right solution for some, but they aren’t for everyone," Dym continued. "Our goal this legislative season was to secure funds to create more person-centered options so we can meet each person’s unique needs and preferences.”

Addressing the affordability crisis

By and large people with developmental disabilities live off their SSI benefits, about $914 per month to cover all their living expenses. There is nowhere in the state that a person surviving on SSI can afford to rent a modest one-bedroom apartment. To be able to afford housing, they require either subsidized housing, a Section 8 voucher, or both.

The new budget measures are designed to expand the number of publicly funded housing units that meet this income limitation, and also meet the unique needs of people with disabilities.

“Our hope is with funding in the Capital Budget, and the passage of H.B. 1628 [a bill that will increase the supply of affordable housing by modifying state and local real estate excise tax] could mean about $40 million a year.”

In addition, Gov. Jay Inslee has included the developmentally disabled community in his $400 million affordable housing initiative for the first time this year, potentially adding another $25 million in funding for the IDD community.

If this funding goes through as written, we’re no longer going to have this massive housing problem in the DD world.

Supporting the people and organizations that serve people with disabilities

Most people with IDD need someone to support them to live successfully outside their family home. This requires a solid and stable caregiving workforce.

“We’ve worked really hard to try to get pay rates increased for service providers,” Dym said. “We haven’t been very successful this year, but we’ll continue to advocate for that.”

Advocates are also working to change the waiver system, to pay for more third-party support services – like help accessing benefits, negotiating with landlords, finding roommates, and help finding caregivers. This assistance will help people with developmental disabilities find and secure affordable living arrangements.

“Of course, we know this is where Pam [Blanton, CEO and founder of Partners4Housing] is a miracle worker,” Dym noted. “She takes and combines benefits and finds existing housing for people, or helps people develop housing privately on their own.”

“We’re asking the DDA to make it easier to pay for these types of services through their waiver system, so we can help people find housing, prevent being evicted or losing their housing, and help them get the vouchers and benefits they are entitled to so they can afford to live in the community.”

Among the lawmakers supporting these important measures are:

• State Representative Jamila Taylor, who put together a developmental disabilities caucus for the first time;
• State Representative Frank Chopp, who included wording in H.B. 1628 that protects several vulnerable groups including the IDD community and makes housing services more readily available in their waiver system; and
• Policy advisor Noha Mahgoub, who worked closely with The Arc to get these funding priorities included in the Governor’s referendum.

Real help should soon be available

If this budget passes as expected, hope should be available fairly quickly.

“We are hopeful we can help the state Department of Commerce become better stewards of this money and make the process of accessing the funds less onerous and less complicated.”

This important funding is really geared toward families with senior caregivers, and families who have not historically been able to access services on their own.

“The DDA is never going to be able to provide housing waivers to everyone with a developmental disability,” Dym noted. “So creative solutions, like the ones Pam’s group helps provide, are going to be the wave of the future.

“We have a perfect opportunity to be innovative and create new models of housing," Dym said. “People have every reason to believe that now we’ve got all the food on the table; we just have to figure out how to sit down together make it happen.”