NCSA Webinar

Homeless by Design: Why A Generation of Adults with Autism and Developmental Disabilities Faces Homelessness

Recorded on March 11, 2022

Featuring: Jan Stokley, Executive Director, Housing Choices, San Jose, California

About this webinar:

This workshop reviews the demographic trends leading to a sharp increase in demand for supported housing for people with developmental disabilities, including autism, and federal and state policies that constrain supply. We will learn from an emerging body of national evidence on how people with developmental disabilities fare when they lose parental support and the unique barriers they face to obtaining appropriate housing. The workshop also discusses policy changes at the state and national level necessary to prevent homelessness among this population.

Jan Stokley is a graduate of the University of Virginia with highest honors where she was an Echols Scholar. Following a Fulbright Fellowship, she attended the University of Virginia School of Law where she graduated with the Order of the Coif. After practicing law with a firm in Los Angeles, Jan moved to the practice of affordable housing law with the National Economic Development & Law Center (now the Insight Center for Community Economic Development). Jan was a clinical law professor at the University of Maryland School of Law and led two other Bay Area nonprofit organizations before joining Housing Choices in 2012. She has written extensively in the fields of affordable housing, family support services, and early care and education. A parent of an adult daughter with developmental disabilities, Jan finds that her job at Housing Choices has woven together many different threads of her life in complex ways that never fail to surprise and reward.

About Housing Choices: Housing Choices was founded in 1997 by parents and service providers who recognized that, without access to affordable housing, people with developmental and other disabilities would be unable to make a successful transition from living in the family home to living in their own homes in the community.  

Finding affordable housing in Santa Clara, Monterey, San Benito and Santa Cruz counties is difficult for anybody, and particularly so for an individual with developmental and other disabilities. The need for our housing navigation services has only grown since our founding.

In addition to assisting clients to find and apply for affordable housing, Housing Choices has also created a lasting commitment to affordable housing by working with developers at eighteen different Partner Properties. A number of other housing properties with set-aside units for people with developmental and other disabilities are in planning and development. At these Partner Properties, we administer a housing waiting list for set-aside units specifically for people with developmental and other disabilities, and we help current residents successfully maintain their housing stability.