What Happens When Our Children with Disabilities Age Out?

My husband and I recently had the opportunity to attend the premiere of the documentary Aging Out. This important film accurately portrays the challenges families of children with developmental/intellectual disabilities (DD/ID) face when their children age out of school district services at 22.

The most pressing questions and concerns facing our family are:

• Where can our adult daughter live without the fear of ever being evicted because of her behaviors?

• Who will care for her if she outlives us?

An intentional community, a planned residential community, designed so that people with DD/ID can live, work and socialize together is what we envision for our daughter. However, most intentional communities for adults with DD/ID explicitly state that "residents must be free of aggressive or threatening behaviors; no serious psychiatric or mental health conditions." This presents an additional hurdle for families like ours and many, many others.

Like-minded families must work together to advance housing options where people with DD/ID and challenging behaviors can live together in intentional communities too.