Housing in Delaware for the Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Population

Individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) encounter numerous barriers in attempting to access housing. Those barriers – financial, physical, and cultural in nature – have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 public health emergency and the related, or co-occurring, shifts that have characterized the housing market in the United States, and Delaware specifically, over these last three years. In this brief introductory research report, we examine the system of housing supports and their availability to individuals with IDD through a subset of those served by the state’s Division of Developmental Disabilities Services through interviews with representatives across the housing support system. Our findings fall into four areas of work: scale and scope; housing availability; housing assistance; and housing supports. We find that: the estimated scale of the housing crisis (in terms of homelessness and insecurity) affecting this population is much greater than the general population, but in line with other national estimates for individuals with IDD; there is limited available housing that is accessible to individuals with IDD available in the state; there is limited assistance available for navigating the housing that might be available; and that there are too few options for providing more supports for individuals living, or trying to live, independently. We conclude with a few suggested recommendations that could provide more reliable data and tracking of need and a call for research that connects housing for individuals with IDD into the growing body of research looking at the relationship between access to housing and health.