What If IDD Care Worked Like Uber (But for All the Right Reasons)?
Every once in a while, you hear an idea that makes you stop mid-sentence.
That’s exactly what happened when Dr. Mike Strouse started describing how GoodLife Innovations delivers care—not just through group homes, not just through shift rotations—but through neighborhoods.
Yes, neighborhoods.
It’s part of what they call their Neighborhood Network Model, and it’s so different—and so effective—that it might completely rewrite what we mean by community living.
Beyond the Group Home
For decades, most of us in human services have been trying to build community through traditional structures: homes, programs, shift schedules, and staffing grids.
But Strouse and his team decided to flip that thinking on its head.
Instead of staffing individual homes, they staff whole neighborhoods.
In each area, GoodLife employs Professional Neighbors and full-time staff who live in or near the people they support. They heat-map the area to understand needs, then deploy staff to deliver care “fractionally”—right where and when it’s needed.
The results?
Predictable schedules, continuity of care, and a system that feels a lot more like real life.
As Strouse puts it, “We’re delivering care as a neighborhood instead of in a home.”
The Uber Analogy That Says It All
In our conversation, Strouse gave an analogy that I can’t stop thinking about:
“If you delivered Uber like you did in-home care, you’d hire a driver for everybody that needed a ride. And every time the driver quit, you’d have a care gap.”
That image stuck with me.
Because that’s exactly how we’ve been staffing in this field—individually, inefficiently, and constantly starting over.
The Neighborhood Network solves that.
By organizing services around a geographic area instead of a single home, the workforce becomes flexible, local, and full-time. It’s not just more efficient—it’s more human.
The Shared Living Foundation
The Neighborhood Network didn’t come out of nowhere. It’s built on decades of success in shared living, where families or individuals open their homes to people with disabilities.
GoodLife’s been doing it since the late 1990s. Today, 88 families support 135 people—with an average turnover of just 3% per year.
Think about that.
If those same individuals lived in shift-based homes, Strouse says, they’d need to replace roughly 150 staff a year to maintain services. Instead, they replace just two or three shared living families annually.
That’s not luck—that’s design.
And when a third of your services operate with that level of stability, it lightens the load for the entire organization.
The $1 Million Phone Call
One of my favorite stories from Strouse came from the early days of the Neighborhood Network.
When he first started leasing apartments for people with IDD in a large residential development, the owner—Doug Price—called to find out who was behind it all. Strouse braced for pushback.
Instead, Price said, “You probably thought I was going to get mad, but I have a son with autism. I’ve always wanted something like this.”
Six months later, Price wrote a check for $1 million to support GoodLife’s mission.
He also gave Strouse a piece of advice that changed the trajectory of their work:
“A quarter of my tenants are seniors. If you could expand this model to support them too, it would change everything.”
Today, the Neighborhood Network serves people with IDD and is expanding into senior care—and it’s making a game-changing impact. (Learn more here.)
A Blueprint for the Future
The Neighborhood Network combines everything we’ve been talking about as a field—technology, relationships, inclusion, and efficiency—into one elegant, evidence-based system.
Using data-driven “heat maps,” GoodLife identifies where needs exist and builds staff networks around them.
Technology bridges the gaps.
Community does the rest.
It’s a model that’s won national recognition, including the Moving Mountains Award from NADSP and Autism Speaks’ Most Innovative Service Model Award.
And it’s gaining attention fast—from agencies, policymakers, and even developers who see the potential of neighborhoods that include everyone.
The Big Lesson
Dr. Strouse’s work is a powerful reminder that solving workforce and care challenges isn’t always about doing more—it’s about thinking differently.
Community living doesn’t have to mean scattered, disconnected homes. It can mean neighborhoods that care—where staff, technology, and inclusion all work together.
If that’s not the future of human services, I don’t know what is.
📬 Learn more about GoodLifeU and the Neighborhood Network Model:
https://mygoodlife.org/goodlife-u/
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