At Front Porch Cohousing, we believe that good decisions require good data. Every few months, we survey the research landscape — peer-reviewed studies, sector analyses, and policy developments — to ensure that what we are building at Hilltown Oaks is grounded in the best available evidence. This is our Spring 2026 roundup: four findings that every family, donor, and policymaker working in this space should know.
The Housing Crisis Is Quantified — And the Numbers Are Stark
The First Place Global Leadership Institute published findings from nine Housing Market Analyses conducted across the United States, representing more than 1,800 individuals with autism and other I/DDs — self-advocates, family members, and support coordinators. The data paints a clear picture of unmet demand and structural failure.
Fifty-two percent of respondents said they want to live in a mixed-use or planned neuroinclusive community. About 65 percent want to rent or buy a home rather than remain in a family home or group setting. Yet 41 percent have no future financial plan, and the majority earn less than $900 a month — making conventional housing entirely out of reach. Nearly 30 percent live with caregivers over the age of 60, meaning the clock is already running for hundreds of thousands of families.
Two concerns appeared consistently across all nine markets: loneliness and the inability to go places. The main barriers to friendship were not attitudinal — respondents reported that they do not know how to turn potential friends into long-term relationships, and that people in their communities do not know how to support them. This is not a personal failing. It is a design problem. And it is exactly the problem that the PORCH℠ model at Hilltown Oaks is designed to solve.
"52% of adults with autism and I/DD want to live in a mixed-use or planned neuroinclusive community. About 65% want to rent or buy a home."Read the full analysis
Loneliness Among Adults with Disabilities Is a Public Health Crisis — and It Is Getting Worse
A peer-reviewed study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine by researchers at Brown University's School of Public Health analyzed data from more than 3,800 working-age adults with disabilities across two survey waves. The findings are striking: 65 percent reported severe loneliness in the first wave (2019–2020), and that number rose to 68 percent in the second wave (2023–2024). The trend is moving in the wrong direction.
For context, only 8 percent of adults without disabilities report often feeling left out or isolated, and only 10 percent say they often feel alone. Adults with disabilities are experiencing loneliness at rates six to eight times higher than the general population — and the gap is widening.
The researchers are explicit about why: disability is, in part, a product of social and structural barriers that restrict full participation in community life. Loneliness is not an inevitable consequence of disability. It is a consequence of how communities are designed — or fail to be. This is the central argument for neuroinclusive planned communities: not charity, not services, but design that makes belonging the default.
"We think people with disabilities may be predisposed to loneliness, since disability is a byproduct of social and structural barriers that restrict people's access to full societal participation."Read the Brown University study
Homeownership in Neuroinclusive Housing Is Rare — But It Is Being Done
The Autism Housing Network published a profile of Trailhead Community in Littleton, Colorado — an 81-unit residential community where adults with I/DD live alongside neurotypical neighbors who have intentionally chosen neurodiverse community living. Thirty-five condominiums are available for purchase. Housing is structurally disconnected from any service provider, meaning residents choose and change their supports without ever risking their home.
The Trailhead model demonstrates what we are working to build at Hilltown Oaks: a community where the home is permanent, the supports are flexible, and the design — Universal Design, aging-in-place principles, shared amenities, a Resident Advisory Council — makes belonging structural rather than incidental.
The Autism Housing Network's framing says it plainly: "Homeownership in neuro-inclusive housing remains rare — and urgently needed." One Trailhead resident, who had cycled through multiple provider-controlled housing models before finding her home there, put it simply: "I've been living by myself since January 2025 — not with my parents, but with myself — and I love it so far." That is the outcome we are building toward at Hilltown Oaks.
Read the Trailhead Community profileFederal Policy Headwinds Make the Ownership Model More Important Than Ever
The 2025 federal budget reconciliation law is estimated to reduce federal Medicaid spending by approximately $911 billion — roughly 14 percent — over the next decade. Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS) waivers, the primary federal funding mechanism for IDD community supports, are directly in the line of cuts. For families relying on waiver-funded services to support a loved one in a group home or provider-controlled setting, this is a serious and immediate threat to housing stability.
The ownership model at Hilltown Oaks is designed to be structurally resilient to exactly this kind of policy volatility. HCBS waivers are prohibited from covering room and board — they fund supports, not housing. When a resident owns their home at Hilltown Oaks, their housing stability is not contingent on waiver availability, provider contracts, or federal policy cycles. The home is theirs. The supports are chosen and changed as needs evolve. This is not just a quality-of-life argument. In the current policy environment, it is a risk management argument.
Read the KFF analysisTaken together, these four findings describe both the problem and the direction of the solution. The demand for neuroinclusive planned communities is large, documented, and unmet. The loneliness crisis among adults with disabilities is worsening and is structurally driven. Homeownership models are rare but proven. And federal policy is making provider-controlled housing less stable, not more.
Hilltown Oaks is designed to address all four. We are building a community where adults with autism, Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, and other I/DDs will own their homes, choose their supports, and live alongside neurotypical neighbors in genuine community. The research says this is what families want. The policy environment says this is what they need. We are building it.