My adult son with Down syndrome, Dave, has been living in a place of his own since 2008. Setting him up and supporting his independence has been a roller coaster, though the hills and valleys have become less steep over time. We have overcome obstacles that I thought, back then, would derail this “experiment.” Dave’s opportunity to live independently began with a Housing Choice Voucher, often known as Section 8, funded by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, also known as section 8. Here is the story of how we got that voucher.
Section 8 Voucher
I don’t remember a lot these days, but I remember one particular phone call as clear as day. It came in on a cloudy Thursday afternoon in May, 2008. On the other end of the line was a woman from the housing authority, the local agency that supports low income housing.
Her message: Dave has been approved for a section 8 voucher. This means the government would pay part of his rent based on his income. And it meant he could now afford a place of his own.
I was confused by the call until I remembered a frantic day 18 months earlier. How could I have forgotten that day?
An Independent Life – From Dream to Reality
Eighteen months earlier, I was meeting with a transition coordinator at Dave’s high school. Her job was to help parents prepare for “the cliff,” the time following high school graduation when we would have to piece together services that had previously been coordinated and provided by the school district. At the end of the meeting, she mentioned, in passing, that Dave might be able to get his own apartment if he qualified for section 8.
The catch? Applications for section 8 housing are opened only for brief, unpredictable periods of time. She said they were currently taking applications, but there was no way to know when they’d close the application period, or re-open it again. And, if we applied now, we would not know if his application was accepted for 18 months.
In an instant, the dream for Dave to live in a place of his own became real. I wanted him to be as independent as possible, but this news caught me off guard. I was excited, but also fearful of the unknown future ahead. But it was mostly a sense of urgency about submitting the application that drove my emotional state that day. My heart raced as I drove back to my office, downloaded and completed the form, then sped across town to Dave’s school to get his signature.
It was difficult to find the housing authority office because it was tucked away within an apartment complex behind other buildings. But I got there before they closed and gave them the form. After a while I forgot about it. Until that cloudy day in May, almost exactly 18 months later.
Too Early for A Place of His Own?
As I mentioned in Parents Breaking Barriers, I intended for Dave to live independently so that he would have a life separate from mine, and because independence fosters growth.
That’s ultimately why we applied for the section 8 voucher. Even so, when it was approved, I remember thinking, “It’s too early, he’s only 21!” But I didn’t want to give up the opportunity because the section 8 process is so unpredictable. I didn’t know if or when we might have another chance. We accepted the offer and spent a long afternoon signing the voluminous paperwork.
It turns out that age 21 wasn’t too early after all. It wasn’t as if everything went smoothly the first week he moved in. Far from it! It took us about 10 years to solve most of the big challenges, like making sure Dave was consistently wearing his CPAP and brushing his teeth.
And we continue to tweak things. For example, his staff told me recently that he doesn’t spend enough time in the shower to get fully clean. Just last week I had to ‘time’ Dave taking a ‘proper shower’ using soap to clean his entire body and shampoo to wash his hair. Now his staff know how long he should be in the bathroom. And he has started proudly reporting to me how long his shower was. He even asked me to add the length of his shower to the task sheets the staff use to record what he has done while they are with him!
The Section 8 voucher was only the beginning of our complex journey. I have described Section 8 in a post on Benefits that Support Independent Living. My upcoming post will describe the next hurdle – finding an apartment.