A crisis of care is threatening the lives of thousands of the state’s most vulnerable citizens, but the good news is that a well-researched, cost-effective solution to this crisis is before the current Texas Legislature and needs your support.
There are more than 700,000 Texans with an intellectual or developmental disability (IDD), and more than 170,000 of them are 18 and older. Their diagnoses include autism, Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, and Fragile X syndrome.
If you don’t have a child or sibling in your family with IDD, you likely know someone who does.
These Texas sons and daughters may be mildly impacted by IDD and able to live independently with little or moderate support, or they may be significantly impacted and require 24/7 support their entire lives.
For individuals living in the community away from their family home, such support may include help with activities of daily living such as bathing, grooming, housekeeping, meal preparation, medication administration and transportation — all with the goal of living and enjoying their fullest lives possible.
A typical community- based setting for adults with IDD is a group home where three-to-four unrelated adults live together and have paid staff called Direct Support Professionals (DSPs) who provide a range of support based on the needs of each individual.
The crisis of care today is that the Texas government- set wage paid to DSPs for these critical supports is $10.60 per hour, one of the lowest wage rates in the U.S. — a dubious distinction for a state as wealthy as Texas.
Would you work for $10.60 per hour? Would you want your son or daughter with IDD to depend on essential care and support from someone paid only $10.60 per hour?
DSPs are the backbone of the community-based IDD service system, often working 60, 80, 100 hours per week performing a wide range of often challenging duties.
A rate of $10.60 per hour is not sustainable, and the crisis is accelerating as more than 230 group homes in Texas have had to close in the last 12 months because of staffing vacancies of 34 percent and annual staff turnover approaching 100 percent.
The current budget proposal in the Texas House includes an increase to only $12 per hour for DSPs who provide these life-critical supports. For comparison, Bill Miller BBQ and Walmart pay new hires $16 per hour.
So how do we fix it? My nonprofit is part of a statewide coalition of individuals with IDD, families, providers and advocacy organizations called Time to Care Texas (www.timetocaretx.org) that has extensively researched and conservatively calculated a solution that begins with resetting the DSP wage rate to $17.50 per hour.
Some may question a jump from $10.60 to $17.50 per hour as excessive, but it only appears that way because the Legislature has not kept the rate current with real world wages and inflation.
For perspective, the rate paid to workers at the 13 state-supported living centers in Texas, which serve the same population except in an institutional setting, is currently $17.71 per hour and jumps to $19 per hour this year. We’re only asking for parity.
What would the fiscal impact to the state budget be for an increase to $17.50 per hour? Only $313 million in general revenue funds for the biennium, which is less than 1/1000th of the current proposed budget of $330 billion.
It’s time to address this crisis of care for the most vulnerable Texas citizens.
Mark Olson is the father of two developmentally disabled adult daughters, President and CEO of LTO Ventures (www.ltoventures.org), and a Boerne resident.
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