Our family strongly supports allowing individuals to use their Medicaid waiver?funded services at Vanguard Landing. My experience comes first from being the sister of an adult with an intellectual and developmental disability, and it is also shaped by 30 years working in special education, including early intervention, hospital settings, public schools, and two Virginia Community Services Boards. I learned a long time ago that independence does not look the same for everyone. People need different kinds of support to build a full life at home, in their neighborhood, and in the wider community.
Throughout my career, I worked alongside dedicated professionals advocating for individuals with disabilities and helping them build lives defined by choice, connection, and community. My perspective is informed not only by decades of experience in the field but by a lifetime of supporting and advocating for my brother. What I learned professionally has been reinforced by what I have witnessed personally as his sister.
My brother has an active waiver. He is social, enjoys building projects, and follows the nightly news. Like thousands of Virginians, he spent a long time waiting for this support. The waiver is intended to help meet his individual needs and support the choices, relationships, and activities that matter to him.
After high school, my brother lived in a group home before spending more than 20 years in a traditional apartment complex, the type of living arrangement many people would consider “fully integrated.” The hope was that a standard apartment would give him natural access to the community, but in reality, it meant living alone without the supports he needed to feel connected. A typical apartment complex did not give my brother the natural opportunities he needed to meet people or build relationships. In all those years, not a single neighbor knew my brother’s name, and he didn’t know theirs.
Although my brother’s support plans emphasized skill building and forming friendships, he was entirely dependent on whether an agency worker showed up on time, or showed up at all, to access his community. When staff were late or absent, his day stopped. He often sat alone in his apartment because there were no everyday chances to connect with others or be part of the world around him. A paid employee who leaves at the end of their shift cannot provide the peer relationships or genuine social connection my brother needs.
High turnover and frequent staff no-shows made it difficult for my brother to maintain skills or participate consistently. His life skills regressed and his social world shrank. Over two decades, our family tried every reputable care agency available, but changing providers never solved the problem because the issue was not always the staff. It is a systemic issue rooted in the structure of the scattered?site model itself. For my brother, the traditional apartment setting offered no real path to the skills, relationships, or community connections that waivers are meant to support.
My brother was surrounded by people but completely invisible.
After more than two decades, it became clear that the stand-alone apartment setting provided a lease but not a life. Apartment living met the appearance of independence, but it left my brother disconnected from the very community it was meant to provide. His experience shows that real belonging is not defined by a ZIP code, but by meaningful access to relationships, choice, and everyday life in the broader community.
As both his sister and a former I/DD professional, I have seen the difference between what services look like on paper and what individuals actually experience in real life. The years my brother spent navigating those systemic gaps contributed deeply to his isolation and ultimately led our family to explore other options on his behalf. While my family introduced him to Vanguard Landing as an option, the choice to live there was his. When my brother walked the neighborhood for the first time, his initial reaction said everything: his face lit up, and he immediately began imagining what his life there could look like.
He was attracted to Vanguard Landing for the same reasons our family loves living in Virginia Beach: easy access to the beach, shops, restaurants, healthcare services, the library, and the Princess Anne Recreation Center, where he will be able to use his membership to stay active and connected. Vanguard Landing sits within a natural residential cluster of eight established neighborhoods, including my own. It is only a mile from my home, and we can bike there using the Three Oaks Path, a paved greenway that connects our neighborhoods, parks, and shops.
This location gives my brother the opportunity to live life on his own terms, with the flexibility to use his waiver?funded supports for his health and daily routines. He can walk to restaurants and shops across the street and use local rideshare, HRT OnDemand, and Uber Health, or access specialized community programs such as HRT Paratransit and I?Ride Transit to get to jobs and events throughout Virginia Beach.
My brother has already selected and furnished his own townhouse in the Vanguard Landing community. He takes tremendous pride in moving into a home that will be truly his own, and he is deeply excited to become part of this neighborhood. Here, he looks forward to having greater control over his own day?to?day life, including setting his own schedule, preparing meals in his full kitchen or enjoying the café with friends, making personal choices, welcoming visitors anytime, and staying active across the city.
He will have private space for his hobbies and friends nearby, including a longtime friend he has known since high school who decided to move there too. Choosing your own neighbors and keeping lifelong friends close by is something most adults take for granted, and it reflects what real independence should look like. Living so close down the road also means we can remain an everyday part of each other's lives.
People who rely on Medicaid waiver supports deserve the same opportunity as anyone else to choose where they live and participate fully in their communities. My brother waited years for a waiver designed to support his individual needs and goals. He has chosen Vanguard Landing as his home because it offers the independence, relationships, and support he needs to live the life he has chosen. Allowing waiver?funded services in the home my brother has chosen is essential to honoring the life he is working to build for himself.
Now, for the first time, my brother has the opportunity to live in a place where he is known, connected, supported, and empowered to live the way he chooses. He tried living independently in a typical apartment for decades, with multiple agencies over the years, and it consistently left him isolated and disconnected. What he has chosen at Vanguard Landing finally reflects the support and community he has needed all along. His experience, along with the experience of so many families, shows exactly why individual choice matters under Medicaid guidelines.
I respectfully urge DMAS to allow individuals to use their Medicaid waiver?funded supports at Vanguard Landing so my brother and others can receive the services they need in the community they have chosen.
Thank you for the opportunity to share our family’s experience.
Shannon, M.A.Ed.
Sister, Former I/DD Professional, Virginia Beach Resident