This year, DHSS hopes to receive roughly $500,000 to expand a housing voucher program for Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health clients with serious and persistent mental illnesses.
Those dollars would add 20 new vouchers to the 420 currently available – and add 5 percent to the value of the vouchers.
As demand for rental assistance and community-based treatment for Delawareans with serious disabilities rises, DHSS is shifting from providing those services in-house to relying on contractors, including organizations willing to provide supportive housing and accept vouchers.
But lawmakers like state Sen. Stephanie Hansen is reluctant to direct more state dollars to those contractors without stronger quality control measures, citing stories from New Castle County police officers about contract housing providers neglecting residents and leaving police departments and their mental health specialists to handle clients’ basic needs.
“It’s a tremendous waste of resources," she said. "It’s a waste of money that we’re giving to these contractors that aren’t doing their jobs. And it’s a waste for county government.”
State Sen. Dave Lawson raised similar concerns about the quality of in-home care contractors receiving from the Division of Services for Aging and Adults with Physical Disabilities. DHSS proposed increasing the reimbursement rates for those contract services by over $1 million.
DHSS Secretary Molly Magarik says her department is still trying to build the expertise to manage contractors, which she says can be vastly more complicated than providing services directly.
“It’s setting everyone up for failure if we don’t have the expertise to actually manage contracts because, again, it is very different from delivering services," she said.
Magarik notes DHSS would not be able to hire enough staff to meet the growing demand for mental health services in-house.
