BALTIMORE — Carmen Houston-Ludlam leads an active life. The 27-year-old, who has Down syndrome, stays busy with swimming, snowboarding, cheerleading and a job at MOD Pizza in Dunkirk, where she’s amassed a fan club of sorts — people who go to the store when she’s working just for her to make their pizzas.

“She just loves life,” said her mother, Ginger Houston-Ludlam. “She is one of those people that if you’re having a bad day, just go hang out with her for a little while. She’s nothing but positivity.”

But Carmen is unable to drive, and life in rural southern Anne Arundel County means public transit and ride-sharing services are few and far between, leaving her to rely on self-directed services through the Developmental Disabilities Administration for transportation to work and her other activities.

The support Carmen and thousands of other Marylanders depend on through the DDA could be at risk with Gov. Wes Moore’s proposed $200 million fiscal 2026 budget cuts to the state agency.

In the weeks since the proposed cuts were announced, advocacy groups, care providers and family members of people with developmental disabilities have been vocal in their opposition. They’ve contacted lawmakers and educated them. They’ve shared stories on social media. A rally on Lawyers Mall this week drew hundreds to Annapolis with a clear message: “Save our services.”

Now, advocates are working to keep that momentum going as budget hearings approach, and they’re asking lawmakers to focus not just on the numbers but the human cost, as well.

“Showing what we can do when we come together, there’s power in that,” said Rachel London, executive director of the Maryland Developmental Disabilities Council. “And that is the way to create change.”

The proposed reductions include wage modifications, elimination of geographic differential rates and decreased funding for more individualized residential supports for people with higher-intensity needs. Some additional cuts are contingent on legislation being enacted, which could modify the DDA’s self-directed services provisions and eliminate its low-intensity support services program.

In making a case against the cuts, personal stories can be more powerful than anything, said Ande Kolp, executive director of The Arc Maryland.

“A lot of people would worry, ‘Oh, I don’t have data, and I’m not a scientist, and I don’t know how to make my case,'” she said. “All you need to do is talk about how this will impact your life, because legislators need to know what these budget cuts would mean to your loved one, to your family, to your livelihood … and everybody has the capacity and expertise to do that.”

Advocating is not unfamiliar for parents, however; it often starts at the moment of their child’s diagnosis.

“Parents of children with developmental disabilities have to fight for education and education services, they have to fight for good medical care, they have to fight to be understood,” said Laura Howell, CEO of the Maryland Association of Community Services. “And quite frankly, as parents get older, they start to really fear what will happen to their adult children when they die, because they’ve been worried about and helped raise and support their children their whole lives.”

Houston-Ludlam, who does paid and unpaid work to support her daughter, shares those worries.

“As I am aging and coming to terms with my own mortality, what happens to Carmen when I’m not here to provide all of those services for free?” she said. “This is somebody who is out there in the community doing great things, loving life. What is going to happen to somebody like that if she gets stuck in a room without any kind of real ability to have any control over her life and her future?”

Advocates and family members have raised concerns that the cuts could reverse progress made in the last few decades, which included a shift away from institutional care.

But efforts being made by lawmakers to find a solution to the cuts have been encouraging so far, Kolp said.

“They’re listening intently, they’re taking meetings, they’re really working hard to figure this out,” she said. “That’s what I’ve seen be the difference in previous years; when it kind of clicks, and we can kind of work together to find the solutions together. It takes all of us at the table.”

Having a seat at the table with the Moore administration is something advocates have been working toward, too, and they’re anxious to collaborate with the state’s new health secretary, Howell said.

Current Maryland Health Secretary Laura Herrera Scott will leave her role at the end of February. Dr. Meena Seshamani, who most recently led the Medicare program and was deputy administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, will be Moore’s nominee to lead the Department of Health.

Houston-Ludlam, a board member of the Self-Directed Advocacy Network of Maryland, said while the group hopes to avoid as many cuts to the DDA as possible, they’re asking that the agency not take a one-size-fits-all approach if the cuts go through.

“Give the people a little flexibility to figure out how to make it work,” she said.

The group is also asking for a legislative audit of the DDA to ensure they’re following state law and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services rules in light of recent changes to documentation requirements, as well as the creation of a legislative workgroup to force the agency to work with stakeholders before approving modifications, according to Houston-Ludlam.

However, the uncertainty of what the future could hold still remains.

“If these cuts happen, I do not see how we as a state and a community ever recover,” Kolp said. “And that scares me more than anything, that scares our families more than anything.”

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