We, Hope House Foundation, welcome any choices for full lives for adults not only in Hampton Roads but all of Virginia with developmental disabilities. Many, not just Hope House Foundation, want to ensure that if Vanguard is going to be permitted to receive Medicaid funding, then Vanguard Landing should be required to follow the HCBS guidelines required of all providers. This may influence how Virginia balances innovation, consumer choice and the long-standing expectation that people with disabilities have meaningful opportunities to live and participate as fully integrated members of their communities, not isolated from it. We believe this funding is essential to inclusion and a better life for adults with disabilities and should not be used to support a model that, based on the current record, appears isolated and segregated from ordinary community life. Hope House Foundation has worked toward that vision of inclusion since 1964.

Thomas W. Moss III

Hope House Foundation Board President