Kern Regional Center: Building Assets and Breaking Barriers for People with Developmental Disabilities

Aaron Markovits¹, Program Director, introduces one of the new Assets For Independence Individual Development Account programs- which happens to serve people with developmental disabilities.

In the summer of 2006, Kern Regional Center (KRC) hosted a nationally recognized leader in the field of self determination. Tom Nerney talked to staff about the principals of self determination and how asset poverty is one major barrier to our clients being able to fully integrate into our community. Certainly, there are systematic constraints that factor into this a cycle of poverty for people with developmental disabilities, but there are some things that can be done to address this issue even now.

Kern County, California is no different than the rest of the country in that few adults we serve have real opportunities to build assets. The causes for this are complex, but the reality is that most of the adult clients we serve continue to live in poverty. This is true even though our role as an agency has an outstanding track record that is well known throughout California. There is still no formal dedicated funding stream to support asset building for people with developmental disabilities.

KRC develops solutions to challenges that we face in the community where we live, study, work, and play. The Kern Regional Center Individual Development Account Program will assist participants with developmental disabilities (and family who care for them) in Kern County to buy a home, advance their post-secondary education, or start/expand their micro-enterprise. The Kern Regional Center Foundation has received a grant from the Administration of Children and Families Office of Community Services Assets for Independence Program. This grant will allow Kern Regional Center clients to participate in IDA's to help establish assets like home ownership, education, and micro-enterprise. A 3:1 match to all participants who qualify will be provided to 75 participants over the 5 year project. This means participants can save $1,000 and receive $3,000 in matching funds to provide a total of $4,000 for the savings goal they have established.

So someone out there is asking: "What about the Social Security Resource limit?" IDA's in the Assets for Independence program are exempt from federal Asset tests applied by various social service programs. This includes Social Security, HUD, and Department of Human Services. The power of this exemption cannot be overstated as this is probably the largest single barrier to our client's ability to build and maintain assets.

We have a lot of education and re-education to do in order to inform people that this is not a 'too good to be true' situation; we are excited to even have the potential opportunity to do this. To help us with this task we are pleased to be partnering with the Kern Schools Federal Credit Union, Delano Association for the Developmentally Disabled, Housing Affordability via Enterprising Non-profit Services, and Taft College Transition to Independent Living Program.


For More Information, Contact:
Aaron Markovits
Kern Regional Center
Project Director
661-852-3291
amarkovits@kernrc.org

1 About the Author:
Aaron Markovits has served people with developmental disabilities in a
variety of settings over the last 15 years including supported living,
day program, after school program, group home, skilled nursing facility,
transportation, case-management, job coach, and support staff for self
advocates. His experience working for service providers as well as the
Regional Center has given him a broad understanding of system serving
people with developmental disabilities.