Closure of Longview-area Group Home Illustrates Ongoing Crisis Facing Community IDD Services in Texas

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 9, 2025

AUSTIN, TX – In case you missed it, the Longview News-Journal highlighted the story of Concord Manor – a group home serving Texans with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) in Longview, Texas – shutting its doors due to ongoing financial strains impacting the community IDD service system in Texas.

The feature piece in Sunday’s Longview News-Journal was the first in a series about people with IDD in the Longview area, and discussed the ongoing workforce crisis impacting services for the most vulnerable Texans:

While smaller group homes and other community-based services might be the best forms of care people can receive, nearly 176,000 Texans with mental disabilities are left to wait years, even decades, before they can get those services, according to a December 2024 report by the Arc of Texas, an organization advocating for Texans with disabilities.

Under Medicaid, state leaders determine how much money they’ll pump into the system, which determines how many people can get services and the amount of service available…

…Staffing shortages and low reimbursement rates from Medicaid have resulted in the closure of hundreds of Texas group homes in the past few years, with 179 shutting down between January 2023 and February 2024, according to data from Time to Care Texas, a coalition advocating for better pay for direct care workers.

In Texas, the base wage for people who work in group homes, called direct care workers, and those who work in a client’s home, called personal care attendants, is $10.60 per hour — the rate set by the Legislature. That rate is less than workers would make at fast food restaurants…

…And the work is harder: Direct care workers and personal attendants are responsible for administering patients’ medications, bathing them, cleaning up feces and urine, lifting the patients and more — every day, as often as needed. Direct care workers often work more than 40 hours per week.

Concord Manor, the last group home operated by Community Healthcore, closed on March 18of this year, with many of its residents being absorbed by other group homes in the area. Unlike many other community IDD service providers across Texas, Community Healthcore had enough funding to pay direct care workers – known as direct support professionals (DSPs) – at least $16.00 per hour. This rate is well above the current $10.60 per hour wage rate that has caused an unmitigated workforce crisis impacting Texans with IDD who seek community-based care and support:

That level of pay is a ‘luxury’ that most providers don’t have. Community Healthcore is a large institution that could move money from other programs, Community Healthcore Executive Director Inman White said.

Still, even with more competitive wages, the financial strains of providing high-quality, individualized services to Texans with IDD proved too much for Concord Manor to keep its doors open:

“The challenge with Concord has always been being able to provide the services that people require and need within the rate that is offered to provide the services,” White said. “The services can be very expensive, very comprehensive, very good, very individualized.”

Advocates expressed optimism that lawmakers will take concrete steps to address the crisis facing community IDD services this session, including by raising wages for community-based DSPs:

Texas lawmakers are considering increasing pay for direct care workers during the ongoing legislative session…Proposals in the Texas House and Senate range between increases to $12 and $17.50 per hour. Lawmakers also are evaluating ways to improve coordination between state agencies that serve people with mental disabilities.

Pay, however, can only go so far toward solving staffing shortages. Being a direct care worker takes something training can’t provide: heart.

“If you don’t see the value of it, you don’t last long, and it really shows itself in a hurry,” said Sandra Taylor, with Community Healthcore. “But those who really have a heart for the individuals, they tend to do very well in this field.

“Once you have worked with individuals with developmental disabilities, they touch your heart, and it’s something magical that happens to you. But it starts with the organization that you’re a part of, that recognizes our role and the importance of our role.”

“Those individuals who work with the [residents] were amazing workers,” Taylor said. “It was more than just a job. There were some individuals at Concord [whose] families were not involved with them. So, the workers became their families, and we celebrated birthdays. We celebrated anniversaries. We bought Christmas gifts. We made certain that they didn’t want for anything.”

To read the full article in the Longview News-Journal, click here.

To read more about how the Texas Legislature can stem this crisis and restore stability to community IDD services in Texas, click here.

Time To Care: Save Texas Caregivers Now is a coalition dedicated to securing competitive wages for Direct Support Professionals (DSPs) who provide essential care to Texans with intellectual or developmental disabilities (IDD). Through collaboration and grassroots efforts, the coalition strives to enact meaningful change at both the legislative and community levels. Learn more about how to get involved at https://timetocaretx.org/

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Closure of Longview-area Group Home Illustrates Ongoing Crisis Facing Community IDD Services in Texas

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