Advocacy letter asking for increased funding for direct service provider wages

 Dear Governor Pritzker,

We Deserve More is a statewide coalition made up of families and friends of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and the nonprofit community providers, and advocacy organizations who support this population. Our main goal is to increase wages for direct service professionals (DSPs) who provide 24/7 support to individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. 75% of DSPs are women, about half are minorities, and a large portion are over 60 - facing poverty in retirement. Fewer and fewer young people are choosing this work. Without fair wages, we will never have enough people doing this necessary work.

The average hourly pay for direct service professionals in Illinois is $15 an hour, i.e. minimum wage. This is not a sustainable wage and leads to high rates of turnover in direct service staff. High rates of turnover mean that DSPs receive less training, cannot build as much expertise through experience, and fail to build lasting and meaningful relationships with the clients who depend on them. Those who remain in the field are incredibly dedicated and compassionate. They deserve adequate compensation. 

Your proposed FY26 state budget includes a 50 cent-per-hour DSP wage increase. However, the budget also includes a 50% rollback of the Community Integrated Living Arrangement (CILA) rate adjustment factor. CILAs provide opportunities for people with disabilities to live in the general community with peers. DSPs are necessary to CILA living. The FY26 budget means that DSPs will barely make more money, while programs will have less state funding to hire staff. We stand to lose at least 430 DSPs statewide. 

Many programs already face staff shortages due to the low pay and difficulty of the work. The proposed budget will put more pressure and stress on the backs of direct service professionals and lead to fewer opportunities for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities to live in CILAs. More than 16,000 people are currently waitlisted for CILA placements due to staff shortages. Those people are either living at home with family struggling to provide support or in state-run facilities that cost the state more than CILAs, 3 of which are under investigation by the DOJ for abuse, and at best face staff shortages and provide minimal access to community. The people who most need community support should not suffer due to efforts to balance Illinois’ budget. 

For more information on this issue, please visit our website. People with developmental and intellectual disabilities must not be left behind. 

This is a fine example of how to write an advocacy letter.  You explain the situation briefly.  The problem is fairly easy to grasp: people who provide living support services to persons with cognitive or developmental disabilities are underpaid—severely underpaid.  The Governor has proposed a small increase in the base pay for these workers, but has also cut the Community Integrated Living Arrangement rate adjustment factor.  You quantify this with a statistics (430 fewer Direct Service Providers in the state next year). 

I like in particular how you explain the real damage to the quality of services that comes from having wages for DSPs so low. I also like your point that CILA placements may save the state money if they are compared to the alternative of the state-run facilities.   By the way, during the social work advocacy day while we were in the capitol, we saw the DSPs and some of their clients in the rotunda, shouting that they deserve more.  

I think when you want to know how civilized a society is, you need to look at how they treat prisoners, animals, and persons with cognitive or developmental/physical  disabilities. I know someone who has been a direct service provider.  I remember that for a while, while both she and her husband were employed, they didn’t have enough money to afford housing, and they had to double up in a relative’s home with their children all living together for several months. 

I wonder how much it would cost the state to raise wages of all the DSPs up to $17 or $18.