Investigative
Report and Recommendations — "Out of Options: Addressing Inequities in Care for Texans with IDD and Mental Illness"
The Arc of Texas Whole Person Project, funded by the Texas Council for Developmental Disabilities, seeks to expand access to quality mental health services for adult Texans with
intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD).
Following months of research and interviews with individuals living and working at the intersection of this co-occurrence, we invite you to read our in-depth, investigative report and recommendations, “Out of Options: Addressing Inequities
in Care for Texans with IDD and Mental Illness,”authored by Pulitzer Prize investigative journalist Alex Stuckey.
Watch this 2-minute video for a quick overview and a few personal stories before diving into the report:
Thank you to the self-advocates, families, and individuals working in these fields for contributing to the report's development. We hope this brings forth more investment in solutions to help Texans with IDD who have a co-occurrence of mental illness.
Report Highlights
176,000+ people are waiting for care through Medicaid waiver programs — which can help keep individuals with IDD in their communities versus in an institution — a 73 percent
increase since 2015. Some people wait nearly 20 years to reach the top of the list.
Personal care attendants — who help disabled individuals with everyday tasks such as bathing, dressing, and toileting — make an average of $10.60/hour in Texas. This ranks the state 50th out of the 50 states and Washington, D.C., in average hourly wage. Louisiana is the only state with lower pay.
Only two of the 18 Texas colleges and universities with Masters and/or Doctoral Psychology programs with a clinical component surveyed by The Arc of Texas offer IDD training beyond assessment and diagnostic services.
About 8.6 million Texans have no alternatives to restoring their competency beyond sitting in a jail cell waiting for a state psychiatric bed — a
wait that can stretch on for months.
Texans in at least 62 of the state’s 254 counties have access to jail diversion centers, which connect individuals with IDD and/or mental illness with care instead of sending them to jail.
Nearly 2,000 people are waiting for a bed in a state-funded psychiatric hospital — most of them from a jail cell — a
500 percent increase since 2015.
Texas does not require training for county jailers on how to handle individuals with IDD.
At least ten privately funded psychiatric hospitals in Texas have an IQ cutoff of around 70, meaning individuals with IDD are often barred from entrance.
This project is supported by the Texas Council for Developmental Disabilities (TCDD) through a grant from the U.S. Administration for Community Living (ACL), Department of
Health and Human Services, Washington, D.C., 20201. Grant number available by request. Grantees receiving government sponsorship are encouraged to express their findings and conclusions. Opinions do not necessarily represent official TCDD or ACL policy.
