As the daughter of a fierce, consistent, and deeply respected advocate for individuals with disabilities, I am writing in strong support of Vanguard Landing's approval to bill Medicaid and operate under waiver status.

My late mother, Mary Ann Bergeron, served as Executive Director of the VACSB for 25 years. The VACSB's mission was, and remains, to build a publicly funded system of quality services in Virginia that is genuinely responsive to individuals and families with behavioral health and developmental disability needs. I didn't fully grasp the weight of my mother's life's work until I gave birth to a full-term baby girl with a genetic disorder — undiscovered until well after her birth — that would change the course of our family's life forever.

In 2012, Judge John A. Gibney, Jr. appointed my mother sua sponte as the court's own independent expert in United States v. Commonwealth of Virginia — the landmark settlement that established the legal and regulatory framework under which DD waiver services, including the very HCBS Settings Rule review now before you, operate today. She prepared a report for the court and testified at the June 8, 2012 fairness hearing on the Commonwealth's capacity to deliver on the settlement's promise: community-based, integrated services for people with disabilities.

What I carry with me most is this: my mother spent her career fighting for a system she believed Virginia was capable of building — and my daughter, Lila, was the first of her six grandchildren and her only granddaughter.  She held Lila. She forged an unbreakable bond with Lila. She loved her fiercely, the same way she fought for every family like ours. She did not live to see where this story leads, but everything she built in 2012 was, in the truest sense, built for her own granddaughter's future — and for every family walking this same road behind us.

Vanguard Landing is where that future lives. It is exactly the kind of innovative, community-integrated model the 2012 settlement envisioned — not a departure from what my mother fought for, but its natural next chapter. An intentional community is not a segregated one. It is a community built with a purpose: to offer choices that support an independent, consistent, well-rounded life.

Right now, our daughter Lila sits at home each day, waiting for a decision that will shape the rest of her life. Vanguard Landing is the closest thing to what we have dreamed of for her — a setting that offers more possibility, more dignity, and more genuine community than any traditional group home or sponsored residential placement we have encountered.

I understand this model has met resistance, and I understand why: change is hard, and new ideas deserve careful scrutiny. But careful review and genuine openness are not opposites — they can, and should, move forward together. No system serving people with disabilities in Virginia has ever been perfect, including the one this settlement itself was designed to fix. Progress has always required someone willing to try what hasn't been tried before. My mother believed that. Vanguard Landing is living proof it's still true.

Vanguard Landing has shown its commitment to meeting the Commonwealth's standards. I urge DMAS and CMS to approve its ability to bill Medicaid under waiver status — not just for Lila, but for every family in Virginia still waiting for the future my mother spent her life working toward.

Respectfully, 

Nicole Bergeron Mumford