2025 DC Council Hearings.
Please Submit Your Testimony by Thursday June 12!
At this link:
https://lims.dccouncil.gov/Hearings/hearings/833 you hit "submit testimony" (in top right corner) about hoarding.
(FYI, here is link to last year's hearing: https://lims.dccouncil.gov/Hearings/hearings/324 )
DC DBH severe service gap and unmet behavioral health need is costing DC taxpayers more money than if DC DBH just stopped ignoring HD. DC DBH sweeping under the rug "Hoarding Disorder" causes huge unnecessary costs to FEMS and to DACL APS, and puts at risk both people living with HD and first responders. These unnecessary costs can be avoided with early intervention and harm reduction by DBH.
You can just copy and paste the italics text above for your testimony, or submit your own words.
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(Additional suggestions are below. Some of the following is out of date. Thank you for your understanding and patience. [June 10, 2025])
DBH, DACL, FEMS Budget Oversight Hearings April 2025. Exact dates and
New links to upload Your Testimony coming soon.
(Full schedule: https://dccouncil.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/3-12-2025-Fiscal-Year-2026-Budget-Hearing-Schedule.pd)
DRAFT TESTIMONY for you to submit:
https://app.box.com/s/qu3jd2b4aisxjjax67ij8kvrfv3a2epr You can change, cut, add to, send exactly as written -- anything you want! Your submission is so much appreciated! Thank you!
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Additional information follows.
Dates change; details don't.
Thank you for your interest and support!
| Please speak out about Hoarding Disorder YOU DON’T HAVE TO SELF IDENTIFY AS A
PERSON LIVING WITH HOARDING DISORDER
TO SPEAK OUT OF THE CLUTTER CLOSET! | You can help greatly by testifying at the spring
2025 DC Council Budget Oversight Hearings.
You as just a concerned citizen can help by
submitting a short written comment.
You can say:
DBH need to do something to address the
unmet need and severe behavioral health
service gap for District residents living with
the diagnosis defined in 2013's DSM-5 as
“hoarding disorder” (“HD”). Numerous other
jurisdictions in the DMV have hoarding task
forces. Why doesn’t DC?1-- You help greatly by submitting your short
written comment here via email to:
Marcia Huff <mhuff@dccouncil.gov>, and CC:
Ashley Strange <astrange@dccouncil.gov>
Budget Hearing information coming soon here.
(Recent Performance hearings here:
https://lims.dccouncil.gov/Hearings/hearings/640
https://lims.dccouncil.gov/Hearings/hearings/641) 2-- Click: “Submit Testimony” at top right.
3-- Complete information requested. Upload
your written testimony. (You can copy the red text directly from above.)
Committee on Health has oversight for
Department of Behavioral Health (DBH). You can say:
DBH need to do something to address the
unmet need and severe behavioral health
service gap for District residents living with
the diagnosis defined in 2013's DSM-5 as
“hoarding disorder” (“HD”). Numerous other
jurisdictions in the DMV have hoarding task
forces. Why doesn’t DC? 1-- You help greatly by submitting your short written
comment for the upcoming Budget Oversight
Hearing.
Hearing will soon scheduled to take place in March or
April, 2025.
Link to submit your testimony will be
posted here soon.
2-- Click: “Submit Testimony” at top right.
3-- Complete information requested. Upload your
written testimony. (You can copy the red text directly
from above.) You can say:
The diagnosis defined as "hoarding disorder"
(HD) directly relates to FEMS because DBH
lack of early behavioral health intervention
costs FEMS, both in dollars and also in life
and limb. FEMS carries an unnecessarily large financial
burden, because DBH inaction means FEMS
face this diagnosis when HD has reached a
Stage 4 emergency -- far more costly in dollars
-- and human capital. With your oversight over FEMS, if DBH
provides no early intervention, can your
Committee do anything to help reduce harm
for FEMS? Where is DBH in all this? FEMS
need DBH to provide HD support not only to
save money for FEMS, but also to reduce
harm for FEMS. If DBH won't address early intervention that
could prevent a bad -- and costly -- outcome,
911 is not activated until it is too late. "1 in 40 people in the US has a hoarding
disorder," says December 21, 2023, National
Geographic article, and people living with this
diagnosis “are compelled to hold onto the
majority of their belongings, even when doing
so means severely cluttered surroundings
that decrease their quality of life and
jeopardize their safety through increased risk
of fire, mold or rodent infestation, ..." (https://www.nationalgeographic.com/
premium/article/new-virtual-reality-hope-
hoarders-declutter-clean) “Containing a fire in a home where hoarding
is an issue can take twice as many fire
fighters and twice the time.” (https://www.iaff
.org/wp-content/uploads/Fire_Fighter_
Quarterly/2012-Jul- Aug.pdf -- International Fire
Fighter, Journal of the International Association
of Fire Fighters, July/August 2012) If DBH continues to do nothing, can this
Committee with your oversight over FEMS
do anything to help? 1-- You help greatly by submitting your short written
comment.
Hearing will soon scheduled to take place in March or
April, 2025.
Link to submit your testimony will be
posted here soon.
(Recent Performance hearings here:
https://lims.dccouncil.gov/Hearings/hearings/708) 2-- Click: “Submit Testimony” at top right.
3-- Complete information requested. Upload your
written testimony. (You can
copy the red text directly from above.)
You can say:The
diagnosis defined as "hoarding
disorder" (HD) directly relates to APS
because DBH lack of early intervention results in APS making costly emergency
interventions that could have been
prevented by DBH behavioral
health services.
HD currently represents an unmet behavioral
health
need. DBH
should spend a relatively
smaller amount of taxpayer money to do a
training on evidence based Peer Response
Team treatment approach to the
diagnosis
“hoarding disorder.” ("Peer-led groups were
as effective as
psychologist-led groups,
providing a novel treatment avenue for
individuals without access to mental health
professionals."
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30083381/)
Low cost funding allocation
for DBH to train
DBH Certified Peer Specialists to support
DC residents
living with HD would save money by providing early intervention and harm reduction.
Currently DBH refers HD out to Adult Protective Services.
APS is not a
health care agency and does not provide behavioral health
services for HD,
which is a medical, health diagnosis.
APS work for HD
is emergency, crisis intervention — at far higher cost than if DBH
provided early intervention. APS performs costly heavy duty clean out,
places people living with this untreated HD diagnosis under costly
guardianships, and houses people living
with late stage, crisis HD in
costly long term
nursing care — just because the
individuals did not
receive timely behavioral health support, that could reduce harm long
before the case of HD reaches stage four.
With
your oversight over DACL and APS, if
DBH provides no early
intervention, can
your Committee do anything to help reduce harm for
District residents undergoing removal from their homes by APS? Where
is
DBH in all this?
APS need DBH to provide HD support to
save DC taxpayer
money spent on costly
late stage APS intervention.1-- You help greatly by submitting your short written comment. Budget Hearing information coming soon here. (Recent Performance hearings here:
https://lims.dccouncil.gov/Hearings/hearings/688 2-- Click: “Submit Testimony” at top right.
3-- Complete information requested. Upload your
written testimony. (You can copy the red text directly
from above.)
| |
Additional Hearing Information will be updated here on this page.
This page was updated Tuesday, March 25, 2025.
DBH
needs at least to make a start, talking and thinking about HD publicly.
HD won’t be solved by just sweeping it under the rug.
We need: 1– early intervention and 2– harm reduction.
DBH do not have a mandate to address hoarding disorder. No one at DBH is working on this DSM diagnosis.
BACKGROUND
DBH Access Helpline (AHL) refers people with HD issues to Adult Protective Services (APS).
That emergency crisis intervention is very traumatizing and is not
person centered nor trauma informed. Some people referred to APS end up
in long-term care if they can’t change their behavior — this on
authority from APS, now housed under the Department of Aging (? no
longer DHS). DBH’s referring AHL
callers who talk about hoarding to APS is not a solution. That is like
waiting until the house is completely flooded to call the roofer. Research shows HD behavior presents as early as 11 years old.
DBH states it has a strong focus on youth — HD is a youth outreach
issue. Children are living with HD, and children are growing up cared
for by people with collecting behavior, all going unaddressed and
unserved. In 2006 – almost two decades ago -- the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments called "HOARDING: A Dangerous Secret." ( http://www1.mwcog.org/uploads/committee-documents/tVhbWVY20061106110151.pdf ) The Washington Post article, "Hoarding is a serious disorder — and it's only getting worse,”
stated six percent of people have HD. With our Washington, DC, census
more than 700,000 individuals, six percent means over 40,000 District
residents undiagnosed and without behavioral health support – plus
additional friends, family, neighbors, and service providers affected by
people living with Collecting Behaviors. ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/hoarding-is-serious-disorder--and-its-only-getting-worse-in-the-us
) Over 40,000 people live hidden inside the clutter closet because of
shame, stigma, and judgment, without any help from DC DBH. What can the DC Council do to fix this unmet need among DC residents, please? Please testify, and please share this message with others. Thank you for sharing! QUESTIONS?
Please contact: Hilary 202-813-0088 DisordeRThePlay@gmail.com DisordeRThePlay.blogspot.com |
