Private agencies that provide services for the intellectually and developmentally disabled have long warned that, without fresh state and federal funding, they would be unable to provide housing and staff support to the growing number of Americans who need care.

Over the last 12 months, the Covid-19 pandemic’s lingering effects and once-in-a-generation inflation have turned dire predictions into sobering truths, and agency directors, who for years hobbled along on shoestring budgets, have done in 2022 what not long ago would have been unthinkable: closed their doors.

Todd Goodwin, CEO at the John F. Murphy Homes in Maine, has closed four group homes over the past 18 months. Until this year, residents of a home that was closing would be transferred to another home with open beds. But in February, he couldn’t make the staffing ratios work — two […]